Artist Mark Thomas Gibson processes the daily onslaught of news in his TOWN CRIER series, sounding the alarm on our fraying democracy and using art as an urgent call for citizen action. (TOWN CRIER artwork pictured)
Join WXXI for a FREE screening of this short film followed by a discussion with the artist Mark Thomas Gibson and film director Grace Lee, moderated by CITY Magazine editor Leah Stacy.
Details:
Tuesday, October 27
The Little Theatre, Theatre 1
FREE admission
Doors open at 6:30pm/Program begins at 7pm
This event is free, but reservations are required.
More about the film:
As America hurtles towards the 250th anniversary of its founding, TOWN CRIER is a short documentary film that examines the role of the artist in our complicated times. How do artists sound the alarm when the world is on fire? When society is in crisis and leaders fail to deliver, can artists hold us to account for our actions? Or for our inaction? American history painter Mark Thomas Gibson began his “Town Crier” series in 2021 in response to the cultural and political storm following Covid and the murder of George Floyd. These single-panel images were in a graphic, pen-and-ink comic book style and featured a Black man in colonial-era garb announcing the headlines of the day. Christmas, 2021, for example, began “Hear ye, hear ye! Ho! Ho! Ho! We have Joe Manchin problems! We have pandemic problems! We have voting rights and student loan problems! Often published on Instagram, these cartoons hearkened back to the Revolutionary War days of Paul Revere sounding the alarm “The British are coming! The British are coming!”
Since 2024, Gibson’s series and messages have taken on an urgency and greater frequency with regular Instagram posts using the handle @darthgibson. He has also incorporated several town criers into the “Banners” series recently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
TOWN CRIER was shot on location in Philadelphia and Miami.
About the production team:
Grace Lee, Director/Producer, is an award-winning filmmaker working at the intersection of storytelling, activism, and community. Her work spans film, television, podcasts, and digital platforms, including the Peabody winning American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs and Asian Americans documentary series, And She Could Be Next, The Grace Lee Project and the podcast Viewers Like Us. She is co-founder of A-Doc, a national network supporting Asian Americans in the documentary field and brings a long track record of creating work that moves across mediums and mobilizes audiences. Her most recent film Forever We Are Young, about the passionate fandom for K-pop superstars BTS was released theatrically in cinemas worldwide in 2025. More info www.gracelee.net
Alicia Sams, Producer, has over 30 years of experience producing independent film and media, from feature films, documentary series and television. Credits include: Art Spiegelman: Disaster is my Muse; Long Strange Trip; Deceptive Practice:The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay; SOLITARY; Amreeka; By The People: The Election of Barack Obama (director/producer) and the 13-part series Arab American Stories which she created and was presented nationally by Detroit Public Television. She was also Director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics’ Pritzker Fellows Program from 2015-2023, where she brought leading political and public service practitioners to campus and developed seminar series with them to help students identify practical pathways into public service.
Conall Jones is an Oscar-winning producer whose work spans feature documentaries, short films, series, and investigative video journalism. He produced the 2026 Oscar-winning short All the Empty Rooms and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2023 for producing Stranger at the Gate, executive produced by Nobel-laureate Malala Yousafzai. Other credits include Fahrenheit 11/9 (directed by Michael Moore), Super Size Me 2 (directed by Morgan Spurlock) and most recently, he produced All the Empty Rooms, a short documentary about gun violence which premiered at Telluride and Toronto and will be released on Netflix in December. His work has appeared on platforms including Vice, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, A&E, and The New Yorker.