Poetry in Color
An Immersive Art Exhibition
by Vincent Dion Stringer
SEE.
REMEMBER.
RECLAIM.
BEGIN THE JOURNEY…
An immersive visual and spoken-word journey
Poetry in Color is an immersive visual-art component of Crossing Over, an original cantata of Spirituals and an art experience telling the timeless story of the soul sojourning in human captivity and its journey toward liberty, freedom, and joy.
Through painting, poetry, history, memory, ancestral witness, and the spoken-word, artist Vincent Dion Stringer invites us to encounter what has survived, what must be reclaimed… and what humanity might yet become.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS WITH SEEING.
Click each painting on the journey to watch a video, or press start on the audio bar below each painting.
THE JOURNEY
01 - WITNESS
“Eyes See What You Are Doing”
WE SEE.
WE REMEMBER.
WE WILL RECLAIM.
The journey begins with seeing. Power, erasure, broken promises, and suppression inhabit one world; ancestral presence, resistance, community, and reclamation emerge in another
HEAR THE POETRY
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
02 - CHOICE
“Deconstruction: You Decide”
YOU ARE HERE.
The physical painting includes a mirror.
Standing before the work, the observer becomes part of the image.
The question is no longer simply:
“What are they doing?”
It becomes:
“What will I do?”
HEAR THE POETRY
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
03 - TRUTH
“Sojourner in the Garden of Truth”
Who made your skin white?
Who made me Black?
HEAR THE ancestors
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
04 - LIBERATION
“Mother Moses”
Faith becomes movement.
Harriet Tubman embodies “Crossing Over”: the movement from captivity to liberation and the radical decision to return so others might cross.
HEAR THE ANCESTORS
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
“Witness in the clouds: I Hear Music in the Air.”
05 - ancestral witness
The ancestors are not absent. Memory becomes presence.
We remember their sounds: praying, singing, calling our names across generations. We hear their footsteps, their cries for justice, their laughter, and the spirituals that carried hope through captivity.
Their music was more than melody. It was testimony, resistance, and an affirmation of humanity that could not be silenced.
HEAR THE ANCESTORS
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
“Witness in the Clouds II: Up from the Earth”
06 - Rising
What empire's version of history (his-tory) tries to bury our story (OURSTORY) keeps rising.
HEAR THE POETRY
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
THE GREAT TURN
WE HAVE WITNESSED.
WE HAVE REMEMBERED.
WE HAVE CROSSED OVER.
What shall we build?
“Reconstruction: Love, the Last Rebellion
07 - Reconstruction
Beyond the ruins of injustice, we are called to imagine what love can build. Justice is not an abstraction; it is the work of becoming human together.
HEAR THE POETRY
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
08 - Humanity
“The Many Within Us”
We carry multitudes: histories, identities, voices, and possibilities. Our differences do not divide us into separate human races; they reveal the depth of one humanity.
HEAR THE POETRY
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
“Resistance: My Name is Kunta Kinté!
09 - RESISTANCE
They stole his freedom. They stole his homeland. The tried to steal his name. But they could not possess his will. One body, Mant voices. One unbroken humanity.
HEAR THE POETRY
Scan, Listen, Look Again.
CROSSING OVER
An Immersive Art Exhibit and Original Cantata of spirituals
Crossing Over tells the timeless story of the soul's sojourn in human captivity and its journey toward liberty, freedom, and joy.
Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis
333 Dubois Road, Annapolis, Maryland, 21401