Question Bridge: Black Males
Visitors viewing Question Bridge. Courtesy of University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMass Fine Arts Center, Amherst, MA.
In the era of Black Lives Matter, when the United States is again immersed in increasing racial conflict, the simultaneous arrival of Question Bridge: Black Males at both the University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA), at the University of Massachusetts’ Amherst campus, and at Deerfield Academy, a college preparatory school about 30 miles north, could not be more timely. Created by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Chris Johnson in collaboration with Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair, this five-channel video installation weaves together a penetrating transmedia conversation among 160 black males, ages 8 to 80, gathered from nine major cities, spanning a broad range of sociological, economic and educational backgrounds and experience.
Exhibited at 35 prominent museums across the nation, Question Bridge—winner of awards from both the Sundance and Tribeca Film festivals, as well as the recipient of the International Center for Photography award for New Media—enables black males of all ages and backgrounds to express their feelings on subjects rarely discussed in public.
The most moving revelation of the project is the longing of young men for guidance from older generations. A young man seeking a long-term marriage asked, “How will I know if she’s the one for me?” An eight-year-old boy asked: “How do you know when you become a man?”
Most tellingly, participating members of the civil rights generation are challenged in the video: “Why didn’t you leave us a blueprint?” Ambassador Andrew Young, one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s closest lieutenants, admitted, “After civil rights and voting rights legislation was passed, we thought we’d crossed the threshold. But we underestimated our enemies—and we dropped the ball.”
In response, Question Bridge creators have designed “Blueprint Roundtables,” where attendees can dialogue with different generations and identify roadmaps to success for black men and boys. The interactive website, questionbridge.com, offers various platforms, including a mobile app where questions and answers can be added, plus a curriculum designed for high school learners. Meanwhile, UMass UMCA is making plans to create its own Question Bridge, but one that includes women, Asians, and Muslims, as well as black men.