Rain Wilson

Rain Wilson is a playwright, spoken word poet, and educator, who was hired as the Creative and Academic Advisor for the First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Initiative at UW-Madison at the beginning of the Fall 2013 semester.  Her artistic and educational work revolves around empowering African Americans, women, and other marginalized groups. She brought her play Jungle Kings to life on campus in the first annual Multicultural Theater Festival.

How can collaborative art be a means to facilitate social justice?

At the core of Rain Wilson’s residency at The Bubbler is an excavation of community-oriented social justice solutions. Coming to Madison from a large city, Wilson works to create space for people of color to feel seen and heard. For example, through her residency, Wilson led a Teen Bubbler workshop—and resulting exhibition—titled “I Just Want to Be Problem Free,” during which Madison high schoolers made collaborative collages. Each collage focused on the image of a bird flying above and beyond all obstacles, towards a peaceful and free future. Prominently, through this mixed media work, Wilson enabled library patrons to visually understand the weight and dream of freedom.

Art can be a sight of change and a catalyst for conversation. Cognizant of this sentiment, Rain hosted “Art Ignite: Collaging for Change,” a conversation to engage in a dialogue about issues surrounding social justice and any issue created through oppression in the Madison community. Prominently, gallery-goers were able to create a collaborative piece of art in the form of a collage of words, poetry, images, and expressions. Thinking about structure and technique, collage allows entrance into a conversation about brokenness, fractured pieces, being whole or not, and feeling torn. This work was a part of a larger community mural project raising awareness around these issues that was displayed at Madison Public Library. 

Return to the residency archive.