TEMPE – ASU Art Museum partnered with Arizona State University’s Center for Work and Democracy and the George Floyd Global Memorial following a professor’s acquisition of a collection of offerings gathered during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis. Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis during an arrest in May 2020, sparking nationwide protests over police violence.
Items including posters, letters, paintings and more are currently displayed in the museum’s “Twin Flames: The George Floyd Uprising from Minneapolis to Phoenix” exhibit through July 28.
“We say everything is somebody’s offering, therefore nothing is thrown away and that the people are more sacred than the memorial itself,” Jeanelle Austin, George Floyd Global Memorial executive director, said at the exhibit’s opening in February. “We’re people over property all day, every day, so we always have to check ourselves to say, ‘How do we ensure that we’re caring for our neighbors more so than we’re caring for the objects?’ – because that’s how we combat racism.”
Rashad Shabazz, an associate professor of African and African American studies at ASU, and Michael McQuarrie, director of ASU’s Center for Work and Democracy, won the offerings in 2022 at an auction at the Rise and Remember event in Minneapolis. Additional items were provided by Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro protests in the Valley over the deaths of Dion Johnson, Floyd and other African Americans due to police brutality.
“I hope that people find a reason to allow this space to be sacred for them and that they protect this space for themselves,” Austin said. “Because this is our love offering at GFS (George Floyd Square) to the Black community here at Phoenix to say we want you to have a place where you can go and you know that you belong because it’s yours, it’s your story, it’s your voice, it’s your history, it’s your presence, it’s your protest.”