Lonnie Holley will present his short film ‘I Snuck Off the Slave Ship’ at the Community Council for the Arts.

The Kinston-based arts nonprofit smART Kinston City Project Foundation is pleased to present a film screening and artist talk with internationally-renowned contemporary artist and arts educator Lonnie Holley. Holley’s work has been featured at the De Young Museum, the National Gallery of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Most recently, Holley had several pieces as part of the group exhibition “History Refused to Die” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

On April 9, Holley will present his short film, “I Snuck Off the Slave Ship” at the Community Council for the Arts. The short film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year as an Official Selection. The film was directed by Holley and Cyrus Moussavi and features original music written and performed by Holley.

After the screening, Holley will discuss the film and talk about his art. In addition to this event, Holley will be doing a variety of workshops with local artists and students at Rochelle Middle School.

Holley is a man of many myths and talents. Born in Jim Crow-era Birmingham, Alabama, as the seventh of 27 children, Holley traveled across the South and held a wide array of jobs — grave digger, cotton picker and short-order cook at Disney World — before making his first artwork at the age of 29.

Self-taught, he started carving sculptures from sandstone and then settled on his preferred material: found objects. Holley has made totemic sculptures from items such as steel scrap, plastic flowers, melted televisions, defunct machines and crosses.

His work has been collected by several museums, including the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Recently, Holley has also gained recognition for his music, and he has collaborated with the indie-rock bands Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective.

These programs are made possible through a partnership between smART Kinston and the Penland School of Craft. This partnership, now in its second year, was made possible through a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council and has also brought two former Penland artists to Kinston for the months of March and April in addition to another visiting artaft is an international center for craft education dedicated to helping people live creative lives. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Penland offers one-, two-, and eight-week workshops in books, paper, clay, drawing, glass, iron, metals, photography, printmaking, letterpress, textiles, and wood. The school also offers artists’ residencies, local programs, and a gallery and information center.

For more information, send an email to hello@smartkinston.com.