Molly Ross
Jeffrey Kent
Molly Ross is a multi-disciplinary artist working in performance, sculpture, and community art. She is the creator of the annual Great Halloween Lantern Parade; the director and principal artist of Nana Projects Studio, which specializes in cultural performances that engage communities; and an adjunct faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art.
Boston native Jeffrey Kent is a self-taught artist and a 2010 MFA candidate in the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art. In 2003, Jeffrey founded a space for artist studios and an art gallery called the Sub-basement Artist Studios in downtown Baltimore.
photo by La Kaye Mbah
Rumor Mill
Inspired by the power of ideas and the whimsy of urban legends, Jeffrey and I explored a variety of concepts but kept returning to things such as the Internet, flash mobs, and a kind of viral civic action-or at least the idea of it.
In some ways, we are inverting our own cynicism and attempting to invent a mindset for change and action through, well, lies. What if we systematically spread rumors of amazing things happening in Baltimore-both to inspire a sense of wonder and possibility in our community, and just maybe so that some of them might come true? Like conspiracy theories, but just the opposite: instead of disempowering rumors of shadowy agents secretly controlling events, rumors of ordinary people doing amazing things. Their power is in the idea itself-part fancy, part satire, part liberal dreaming. The best lies work off an alchemical formula of just the right amount of plausibility, a veneer of authority, and generous helpings of the unthinkable.
