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JUDY WOODRUFF: Next: an artistic
response to a divided society.

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Jeffrey Brown returns and
takes us to New York for a look
at a recent day-long project

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titled The Shape of Things.

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JEFFREY BROWN: There was
music and movement, a full
day and night of art and talk.

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MAN: Always question democracy.

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The public event, titled The
Shape of Things, featured more
than 50 artists and thinkers

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who engage social
issues in their work.

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There were well-established
figures such as jazz pianist
Jason Moran and newer voices

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like Kimberly Drew.

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It was held at the historic
Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan,
built in 1880 to showcase and

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honor military might, but
now an exhibition space for
visual and performing arts.

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CARRIE MAE WEEMS, Artist:
How are artists responding?

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How are artists maintaining a
level of dignity and hope and
progress and work in the face

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of this devastating violence?

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I want to know what
that looks like.

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JEFFREY BROWN: It was
the brainchild of artist
Carrie Mae Weems, who
called this a convening.

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CARRIE MAE WEEMS: This
brings together, I
think, an extraordinary
group of people who

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are thinking deeply about the
moments in which we live and
are as concerned as I am about

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addressing it.

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And each of us has to
figure out how in our own
lives and in our own work.

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JEFFREY BROWN: The 64 year-old
Weems is best known for her
photography and, through it,

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her exploration of
history, race, and power.

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We first spoke in 2014,
when she became the
first African-American
woman given a solo

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exhibition at the prestigious
Guggenheim Museum.

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Among the works on display,
the 1995 series From Here I
Saw What Happened and I Cried,

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where Weems altered 19th century
photographs of slaves, and
the 1990 Kitchen Table series,

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in which Weems herself is a
character in a set of carefully
constructed scenes from a

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woman's life.

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In recent years, she's taken
the aspect of performance
further, to a theater piece she

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created called Grace Notes,
a response to the 2015 murder
of nine members of a black

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church in Charleston,
South Carolina, by a
white supremacist.

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CARRIE MAE WEEMS:
What is violence?

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How would you characterize it?

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JEFFREY BROWN: For the armory
event, Weems set a theme for
the day, what she called the

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history of violence.

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CARRIE MAE WEEMS: How violence
disrupts and dislocates,
displaces, fragments not only

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the self, the person,
but also the society.

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JEFFREY BROWN: The
participants picked up on
that in a variety of ways.

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ADAM FOSS, Former Prosecutor:
Today, there are 2.3 million
people are in jail and prison.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Adam Foss, a
former prosecutor in Boston,
spoke on mass incarceration and

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the need for criminal
justice reform.

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ADAM FOSS: One in three
black men born today will
spend some time in prison.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Navid
and Vassiliki Khonsari,
who've developed leading
video games, showed

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a new virtual reality
experience to put people
in violent settings to
see how they'd respond.

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And poet Aja Monet read her poem
called "The First Time" about
an interaction she witnessed

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between her teenaged brother
and a police officer.

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AJA MONET, Poet: I couldn't
undo all the hate that builds
watching the men you love cower,

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watching the men you love
cower, bend, kneel to the scows
of overseers, all the bright

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and magic that dims
the light, lowers the
bright and magic dims.

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This police officer stopped
us and felt really entitled to
question us, interrogate us.

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And I noticed the demeanor in
my brother change, and I noticed
how that made him feel and how

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it made me feel to watch.

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JEFFREY BROWN: The 30-year-old
Monet lives in Southern Florida
and has worked with Carrie

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Mae Weems before.

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AJA MONET: If Carrie asks
you, you don't say no.

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You just say yes.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Another young
artist saying yes was John
Edmonds, who showed a series

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of photographs of
young black men.

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JOHN EDMONDS, Photographer:
There is a different
way of entering and
thinking about political

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art, art that's not blatantly
about sort of sending an overt
message, but more so inviting

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the viewer to kind of
contemplate on their
own sort of mind-set.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Do you think that
an artist has a responsibility
today to address political

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issues overtly?

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JOHN EDMONDS: It's an artist's
responsibility to be mindful
of the political climate that

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they're in, because art and
photographs and images, they
have a great amount of power.

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JEFFREY BROWN: That climate
for the people here meant a
response to growing divisions

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within the country.

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CARRIE MAE WEEMS: For me,
Donald Trump has really brought
something so forward to bear

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on us all.

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Right?

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He's brought forward very
clear ideas about what America
should and shouldn't be.

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And it's for that reason I think
that he's been -- his election
has been absolutely remarkable

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and necessary, because it lays
bare the clarity of the moment,
right, and how splintered the

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country is and what people
are really fighting around.

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JEFFREY BROWN: One thing I'm
wondering, though, today,
here, who is this for?

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Are you worried that this
is more like preaching
to the choir here?

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CARRIE MAE WEEMS: No,
no, because even when
we're grappling with
the same ideas, we don't

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all think the same things.

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We don't all believe
the same things.

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For even the -- quote
-- "liberal," the sort
of progressive side,
they're grappling with

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who they are in relationship
to this moment as well.

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JEFFREY BROWN: But do you feel
-- has anything changed in
terms of your sense of you as an

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artist, your responsibility?

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CARRIE MAE WEEMS: No,
it's only deepened.

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It's only deepened.

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I do think that as I mature and
I age, I think more of creating
these spaces, of widening

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the path, and being clear about
that, so that others can do
their work more easily in the

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future.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Weems says she
wants to build on the Shape
of Things project, in her own

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work, and through
future collaborations
with other artists and
presenters who took part.

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For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
Jeffrey Brown at the Park
Avenue Armory in New York.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Amazing.