Efamily News: Artist 6th Annual Confederate Flag Burning and Burial with the Houston Museum of African American Culture

The Confederate Flag Burning Funeral takes place from 2-4 pm CST on May 31.

Message from the HMAAC CEO efamily member John Guess to the Efamily.. You are Invited..
Subject: John Sims Announces 6th Annual Memorial Day "Burn & Bury" Ceremony for Confederate Flags Across the USA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Artist John Sims Announces Sixth Annual Memorial Day "Burn and Bury" Ceremony, Confederate Flag Burial livestream event hosted in partnership with the Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC)

Image Credit: Courtesy of the artist.

Join the Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) as they livestream the burial of the Confederate flag across Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. The ceremony commemorates HMAAC Monument Artist in Residence John Sims' sixth annual Memorial Day "Burn and Bury" ceremony in Houston.

As the only African American cultural asset to own a Confederate monument, The Spirit of the Confederacy, our job at HMAAC as custodians is to ensure, especially during current times, that the true narrative about hatred and its symbols is never forgotten.

To give the flag a proper burial, we're bringing in special guests for its funeral. From Mississippi, Pastor Melvin Richardson will give the Opening Prayer. Gospel Singer Denise Fowler will give a stirring rendition of Amazing Grace. HMAAC Monument Resident Artist John Sims will oversee the Burn and Burial of the flag. We needed just the right pastor to give the Eulogy, and we will be fortunate to have with us Rev. Dr. Freddy Haynes, the prophetic pastor, passionate leader, social activist and eloquent orator and Senior Pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas. Funeral Remarks will be given by Houston Poet Laureate and VIP Arts Houston Director Deborah D.E.E. P. Mouton. Afterwards, there will be a Repass for the special guests.

Image Credit: Installation Shot at 701 Center of Contemporary Art, Columbia, SC.

Courtesy of John Sims.

This Burn and Bury event is part of Sims’ HMAAC Monument Residency and his Recoloration Proclamation, a 20-year multimedia project that confronts the ideas and symbols of white supremacy and visual terrorism, Confederate iconography, propriety of Southern Heritage, and transformative ritual in the context of the African American experience.

This project has featured recolored Confederate flags, installations, public performances, protest work, film, and the AfroDixieRemixes. Elements of the project have been performed in Soho, Harlem, Gettysburg, at the State Capitol in Columbia, SC, and on the steps of City Hall in San Francisco.

On Juneteenth (June 19th) as part of the HMAAC Residency, Sims will host an AfroDixieRemixes Listening Session featuring respondents. In addition to HMAAC, similar Sims events are currently taking place at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and the Tampa Museum of Art. Sims' solo exhibition AfroDixia: A Righteous Confiscation is currently on view at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, SC.

Artist, writer and activist John Sims is featured in a series of four exhibitions and performances across four southern states: South Carolina, Virginia, Texas and Florida opening in the months of May and June, presenting elements of his 20-year project Recoloration Proclamation, a system of work that confronts the ideas and symbols of white supremacy and visual terrorism, Confederate iconography, propriety of Southern Heritage, and transformative ritual in the context of the African American experience.

His solo exhibition AfroDixia: A Righteous Confiscation is currently on view at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, SC. Select works and performance pieces will be featured in shows at the Houston Museum of African American Culture, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and the Tampa Museum of Art.

Image Credit: Five Confederate Flags: A Group Hanging, 2021. Courtesy of John Sims.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

John Sims, a Detroit native, Sarasota based conceptual artist, writer, and activist, who creates art and curatorial projects spanning the areas of installation, performance, text, music, film, and large-scale activism, informed by mathematics, design, the politics of white supremacy, sacred symbols/anniversaries, and poetic/political text. For 20 years he has been working on the forefront of contemporary mathematical art and leading the national pushback on Confederate iconography. He was 2020/21 Artist in Residency at the Ringling Museum, where he developed the performance piece 2020: (Di)Visions of America. He is currently Artist in Residency at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art.

His work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC News, USA Today, US News/World Report,NPR, The Guardian, ThinkProgress, Al Jazeera, Art in America, Sculpture, Hyperallergic, New Art Examiner, Science News, Nature and Scientific American. He has written for CNN, Al Jazeera, Tampa Bay Times, Detroit Free Press, The Huffington Post, Guernica Magazine, and The Rumpus and TheGrio.

ABOUT THE HOUSTON MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE

The mission of HMAAC is to collect, conserve, explore, interpret, and exhibit the material and intellectual culture of Africans and African Americans in Houston, the state of Texas, the southwest and the African Diaspora for current and future generations. In fulfilling its mission, HMAAC seeks to invite and engage visitors of every race and background and to inspire children of all ages through discovery-driven learning. HMAAC is to be a museum for all people. While our focus is the African American experience, our story informs and includes not only people of color, but people of all colors. As a result, the stories and exhibitions that HMAAC will bring to Texas are about the indisputable fact that while our experience is a unique one, it has been impacted by and has impacted numerous races, genders and ethnicities. The museum continues to be a space where a multicultural conversation on race geared toward a common future takes place.