A Father’s Lullaby

This talk will focus on a socially-engaged project, A Father’s Lullaby; a multi-year series of visceral, haptic and sonic experiences and engagements that highlights the role of men in raising children and their absence due to the racial disparity of mass incarceration and its impact on children and women in lower income communities. A Father’s Lullaby is a case study for “Art as Ecosystem,” a network of collaborations with a multiplicity of narratives that investigate social systems and occupy public sites as a critical discourse. The process is centered on alternative modes of reality-based storytelling that emphasize sound and touch using technologies that push the boundaries of media and documentary at public sites, as well as the metrics of co-creation processes with communities, institutions and individuals. The project aspires for a “Poetic Cyber Movement for Social Justice,” where art mobilizes a plethora of voices while utilizing public places and virtual spaces to ignite a more inclusive dialogue to effect social change.