The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist: Ritual Project
Detail of Enrico Riley, Keep on Breathing (2022)
In celebration of Black History Month 2025, There’s Always More, the American Academy in Rome hosts the interactive workshop The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist: Ritual Project.
Join us on February 20 to participate in an activation and ritual related to The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist. There will be a screening of Her Fight, His Name: The Story of Gwen Carr and Eric Garner (2024), a documentary that chronicles Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner whose 2014 death at the hands of the New York Police Department sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. The event will foster an exchange between the US and Italy on examining systemic injustice. The screening will be followed by an interactive workshop, led by the creators of Ritual of Breath, inviting participants to join in community to respond to the wanton killings of Black people and to find healing with each other, using music, words, and art.
We will conclude the workshop with a salon-style sharing. Please bring your own work, compositions, and other expressions of resistance and healing.
The event is in collaboration with the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College.
Biography
Brad Bailey, the film’s director, is the first African American to win the Student Oscar Gold in Documentary for Hale. He recently graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, engaging with “Mothers of the Movement” through his Critical Conversations series and a recent symposium at Harvard Law School. He recently received a New England Emmy nomination on his work with health and civil rights. Bailey hails from Moultrie, a rural farm town in Southwest Georgia. He graduated from Yale University with a major in political science and received his Master of Public Affairs from Princeton, a degree in Oral History from Columbia University, and Master’s in Journalism from UC Berkeley. The film team also includes Academy Award Winner Doug Blush, Jered Everson, Deanna Cuadra, Cedric Hill, online personality Francis Maxwell, and Transformers composer and Academy member Jongnic Bontemps.
The film team also includes Academy Award Winner Doug Blush, Jered Everson, Deanna Cuadra, Cedric Hill, online personality Francis Maxwell, and Transformers composer and Academy member Jongnic Bontemps.
For access to the Academy, guests will be asked to show a valid photo ID. Backpacks and luggage with dimensions larger than 40 x 35 x 15 cm (16 x 14 x 6 in.) are not permitted on the property. There are no locker facilities available. You may not bring animals (with the exception of seeing-eye/guide dogs).
The Academy is accessible to wheelchair users and others who need to avoid stairs. Please email us at events@aarome.org if you or someone in your party uses a wheelchair or other mobility devices so that we can ensure the best possible visitor experience. If you are someone with a disability or medical condition that may require special accommodation, please also email us at events@aarome.org.