Ava DuVernay's Array Sets Live Streaming Event With 9 Commissioned Artists On 5th Anniversary Of Its Law Enforcement Accountability Project
Ava DuVernay's Peabody-winning Array is celebrating the five-year anniversary of its Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP) with a live, virtual gathering of all nine commissioned LEAP artists. The free event will stream exclusively at ArrayPlay.com today, Friday, June 6 at 12 PM PST.
LEAP was launched in 2020 as a response to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a moment that catalyzed a global movement demanding justice and transparency in law enforcement. Rather than respond with a film or documentary, DuVernay activated a collective of artists across multiple disciplines to tell the truth about the police abuse of Black people through storytelling and creativity.
More from Deadline
"There Is No Future In Forgetting": Watch Great Americans Medal Recipient Ava DuVernay's Smithsonian Speech
'Matrix' Co-Creator & Hundreds Of Hollywood A-Listers Want To Stop AI Obliterating Copyright Laws; Lilly Wachowski, Paul McCartney, Ava DuVernay, Cate Blanchett, Alfonso Cuarón + More Write White House
Ava DuVernay Wants To Make A TV Series About Tom Bradley
Funded by more than 1,200 individual donors, LEAP has supported nine original works across a range of mediums including photography, dance, poetry, music, culinary art, book design, and more. For the first time, all LEAP artists will come together in a virtual artist forum to reflect on their creative process, their work and the continuing need for art as a force for justice.
Moderated by Mercedes Cooper, LEAP curator and Array's EVP of Public Programming, the event will reflect on the legacy of LEAP's work over the past five years, and the ongoing importance of uplifting activist voices through artistic expression.
'LEAP was built on the belief that art can be a powerful tool to hold specific officers accountable,' said DuVernay. 'In marking this milestone, we honor the artists who dared to tell the truth, and the communities that empowered them to do so.'
Participating LEAP Artists:
Steve Irby | Photography | 41 to '99
Reggie Black | Hand Type Art | 248 Black Lives Taken
Francesca Harper | Dance Choreography | The Reckoning
Jocelyn Jackson | Culinary Art | Fixed Price Menu
W.J. Lofton | Poetry | Would You Kill God Too?
Delita Martin | Mixed Media Mural | Blue Is the Color We See Before We Die
Polymode | Book Design | The Fiction of Protection
Julian Stephen | Audio Drama | The Aura
Ra-Re Valverde | Original Song | Safe Where?
Best of Deadline
2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery
2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery
'Stick' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The Apple TV+ Golf Series
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
2 hours ago
How groundbreaking gay author Edmund White paved the way for other writers
NEW YORK -- Andrew Sean Greer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, remembers the first time he read Edmund White. It was the summer of 1989, he was beginning his second year at Brown University and he had just come out. Having learned that White would be teaching at Brown, he found a copy of White's celebrated coming-of-age novel, 'A Boy's Own Story.' 'I'd never read anything like it — nobody had — and what strikes me looking back is the lack of shame or self-hatred or misery that imbued so many other gay male works of fiction of that time,' says Greer, whose 'Less' won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2018. "I, of course, did not know then I was reading a truly important literary work. All I knew is I wanted to read more. 'Reading was all we had in those days — the private, unshared experience that could help you explore your private life," he said. "Ed invented so many of us." White, a pioneer of contemporary gay literature, died this week at age 85. He left behind such widely read works as 'A Boy's Own Story' and 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty' and a gift to countless younger writers: Validation of their lives, the discovery of themselves through the stories of others. Greer and other authors speak of White's work as more than just an influence, but as a rite of passage: "How a queer man might begin to question all of the deeply held, deeply religious, deeply American assumptions about desire, love, and sex — who is entitled to have it, how it must be had, what it looks like,' says Robert Jones Jr., whose novel above love between two enslaved men, ' The Prophets,' was a National Book Award finalist in 2021. Jones remembers being a teenager in the 1980s when he read 'A Boy's Own Story." He found the book at a store in a gay neighborhood in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, 'the safest place for a person to be openly queer in New York City,' he said. 'It was a scary time for me because all the news stories about queer men revolved around AIDS and dying, and how the disease was the Christian god's vengeance against the 'sin of homosexuality,'' Jones added. 'It was the first time that I had come across any literature that confirmed that queer men have a childhood; that my own desires were not, in fact, some aberration, but were natural; and that any suffering and loneliness I was experiencing wasn't divine retribution, but was the intention of a human-made bigotry that could be, if I had the courage and the community, confronted and perhaps defeated," he said. Starting in the 1970s, White published more than 25 books, including novels, memoirs, plays, biographies and 'The Joy of Gay Sex,' a response to the 1970s bestseller 'The Joy of Sex." He held the rare stature for a living author of having a prize named for him, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, as presented by the Publishing Triangle. 'White was very supportive of young writers, encouraging them to explore and expand new and individual visions,' said Carol Rosenfeld, chair of the Triangle. The award was 'one way of honoring that support.' Winners such the prize was founded, in 2006, have included 'The Prophets,' Myriam Gurba 's 'Dahlia Season' and Joe Okonkwo's 'Jazz Moon.' Earlier this year, the award was given to Jiaming Tang's ' Cinema Love,' a story of gay men in rural China. Tang remembered reading 'A Boy's Own Story' in his early 20s, and said that both the book and White were 'essential touchpoints in my gay coming-of-age.' 'He writes with intimate specificity and humor, and no other writer has captured the electric excitement and crushing loneliness that gay men experience as they come of age,' Tang said. "He's a towering figure. There'd be no gay literature in America without Edmund White.'
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Super Bowl-Winning Coach Gets Name Dropped in New Lil Wayne Song
Super Bowl-Winning Coach Gets Name Dropped in New Lil Wayne Song originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Music fans likely all rushed to their devices on Friday, as Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil Wayne released what was the sixth of "Tha Carter" series. His 19-track album titled "Tha Carter VI" features from notable artists such as BigXthaPlug, MGK, Kodak Black and 2 Chainz among many others. The New Orleans rapper who many felt was snubbed from performing at this past year's Super Bowl LIX between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs in the Big Easy has always been known for being a lyrical genius. While he's a New Orleans native and a well-known Green Bay Packers fan, Wheezy shouted-out Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay in one of his new songs, "Welcome to Tha Carter." Shortly after name-dropping former NBA star Metta Sandiford-Artest formerly known as Metta World Peace and Ron Artest, Wayne threw in McVay's name while alluding to one of his (Wayne's) personal favorite hobbies. "Smokin' that bomb L.A. like I'm McVay," said Wayne. Aside from being a music icon, Wayne is a huge sports junkie. He has made appearances on ESPN's "First Take," Fox's "Undisputed," and even won an episode of the iconic ESPN show "Around the Horn." As for McVay and the Rams, they came up a couple of plays short of playing in the Super Bowl this past season, and are hoping that with a new addition like All-Pro receiver Davante Adams, they can rectify their shortcomings in 2025. While McVay is likely appreciative of the bar from Wayne, he is also presumably focused on the team's upcoming minicamp in Maui. The Rams open up preseason play on August 9 against the Dallas story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 6, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Juneteenth celebration set for June 14
TUPELO — Every year, residents and officials alike gather at Gum Tree Park to celebrate the day the last slaves were notified of their emancipation following the American Civil War. Tupelo will host its annual Juneteenth Tupelo Freedom Celebration June 14 at 4 p.m. at Gum Tree Park, with a separate celebration set from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on June 19, the official day of the federal holiday. Both are free to attend. 'We are very excited. Each year gets better. Each year… more people become aware of not just the festival but also the history,' organizer Jennifer Lawrence said. 'We come from a people that persevered. They went through a lot of oppression but we are here. We are still growing and evolving and we are making strides.' Juneteenth, a portmanteau of June and 19th, marks the annual celebration of the day Union soldiers traveled to Texas to announced that all enslaved Black people in the state were now free, officially ending slavery in the United States. In 2021, former President Joe Biden signed a law naming the day a federal holiday. The Saturday, June 14, festivities will include music performances, multiple speakers, a barbecue cook-off, a kids zone, a dance contest and giveaways. As part of the event, four graduating Black high school seniors or college students each will receive a $300 Conway Goree Scholarship. There will be a mini motorbike raffle as well. Before the June 19 celebration at the park, Lawrence said there will be a march from Gum Tree Museum on main street up to the monument by the old courthouse. Musical performances include Rapper J, Unique JS, Geno Jones' FOCUS, KP & Favor, Genesis United of Starkville, Mighty Gospel Warriors, Lawrence McKenzie, Changed of Amory, Tay Cheesy Brand the Line Dance Queen, J. Green & The Smack Band, The Crossroads Band, EJ Soul, Music Doll TB and more. Before the event proper begins, there will be a parade that starts 3 p.m., starting at the C.C. Augustus Center on North Green Street. Organizers request those attending bring lawn chairs. On June 20, the second annual 'Freedom Face Up' basketball tournament will take place at the Tupelo Police Athletic League, 204 Douglas Street. For more information, contact, Bridgett 'Miss Bam' Shelly at (662) 871-7590 or Lawrence at (662) 816-8403. Lawrence said vendors are still welcome to apply.
