Rhode Island Artist Jordan Seaberry Promoting Advocacy Through Art

Sitting on the corner of Gordon Ave. and Oxford St. in South Providence is the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence. The Institute’s mission is based on teaching the principles and practices of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s theory of nonviolence.

In order to build Dr. King’s community where everyone is treated with dignity and respect, the institute offer programs and service to help violence-prone communities. These programs include Employment and Education, Victim Support, Nonviolence Streetworker Outreach and Re-Entry, Nonviolence Training and Nonviolent Conflict Resolution Workshops.

“What we want to do is work with the folks that are most at risk right now to shoot someone, get shot, or go to jail for a violent crime,” said Jordan Seaberry, artist and Director of Public Policy and Advocacy at the Institute.

Seaberry, a graduate from Rhode Island School of Design, balances being a professional artist and also a director at the Institute. AP Literature students were fortunate to meet Seaberry at the Institute after they finished reading the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and analyzed Seaberry’s painting The Wanderer.

Jordan Seaberry talking to AP Literature students about his work.

Seaberry’s story starts even before he was born in rural Shuqualak, Mississippi where his grandfather was born. From there, his grandfather was chased out of Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan and fled, like millions of families, directly up the Mississippi River to Chicago.

“I was born and raised in Chicago,” Seaberry says. “When I think about art-making and I think about the work that I do in this building, I often think about the fact that a single act of violence, like a wound, can change the entire course of your history.

“But instead, because of an act of violence, I was raised among violence. Because of an act of violence, I was raised in the city that is notorious for its murder rate and for its gang violence.”

Although Seaberry grew up surrounded by violence, he found something he was passionate about: art. In high school, he loved drawing pictures of his favorite superheroes and creating oil paintings.

Seaberry was accepted into RISD and immediately realized that he hated it largely because of how different Providence was from Chicago in terms of the community. He ended up dropping out of RISD after the first semester of his junior year.

“At the time, I think it was my best decision,” Seaberry admitted. “I had been volunteering with community organizations in Providence and doing [advocacy] work.”

Seaberry’s advocacy work focuses on criminal justice reform and social justice reform. Through his advocacy work and his background as an artist, Seaberry wanted to figure out a way to use his art to get involved in this community that he cared about. Soon after he realized this, he returned to RISD in hopes of focusing his artwork on matters that were important to him.

“Over and over I was playing by this idea that I was just making work that was about these issues, but it wasn't of these issues.” Seaberry continued, “It wasn't necessarily tied in a viable way to the work.”

Then, he found the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence which ignited a platform for him to make artwork that was “about” and “of” the issues that mattered deeply to him.

To rustle with this idea, Seaberry started a series of painting called the Violences Project in which he would paint a portrait for the family of someone who was killed by violence in 2013. These portraits serve as a reminder of the life loss due to violence in the city of Providence.

The Violences Project portraits, courtesy of Jordanseaberry.com.

Now, in his more contemporary work, Seaberry has a new collection called The Wanderer which serves a piece representing familial relationships. He says that this collection was a turning point for him because he was finding aspects of the artwork that related to him, almost like a mirror.

“I started this piece, specifically about this external thing that happened in the world. And slowly, as I was creating these figures, it really slowly turned into me and my dad.”

After a discussion with the AP Literature students, Seaberry revealed that the painting’s external imagery uncovers the different values that a father and a son hold in comparison to each other and how these values are passed on to future generations.

'The Wanderer' collection, courtesy of Jordanseaberry.com.

AP Literature students with Jordan Seaberry after dinner.

Although violence is not as prevalent in the Chariho community as in Providence, most people only hear about what is going on and never put it into perspective.

“The thing about violence and the thing about imprisonment and all of the sort of things that shape these communities is that they operate through invisibility.” Seaberry went on to say, “If the rest of us could see that, we simply wouldn't let it happen.

“When violence operates through invisibility, its the responsibility of creative people and folks who have access to that image to share that and to get that out into the world: to crack that veil of invisibility.

“That is how violence operates through that invisibility. So, some of my job I see as affecting systems change, but its also really about visibility. About humanizing these folks that we are working with because a lot of us in other parts of the state or country don't see it and don't know it happens.”

With the help of Jordan Seaberry and all of its staff, the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence continues to carry out Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream in hopes that it will become a reality one day.