PORTLAND, Maine — It all began with a marriage proposal.
Not long after multidisciplinary artist Titi de Baccarat moved to Maine in 2015 from his native Gabon, he saw a man kneel in front of a woman with a black velvet box in hand proposing marriage. Baccarat was stunned, having never seen the gesture before.
“In my country, this is not how it is done,” he said. “But it was OK. She said yes.”
A year later, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racism. Baccarat found this gesture also intriguing and confusing. Then came George Floyd’s 2020 murder in which he was suffocated by a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck.
“Boom. Wow. I knew I had something,” Baccarat said. “That’s when I started this project.”
The project, called “Taking a Knee for Change,” explores how kneeling can be a powerful symbol of lifelong devotion, a heartfelt protest against racial injustice and a hateful murder weapon, all at once.
Started in 2020, the project’s culminating book, also called “Kneeling for Change,” is just out in hardcover. Featuring photographs of Mainers down on one knee, it includes interviews with the same subjects, talking about what the gesture means to them. Each person also describes the positive change they’d like to see in their world.
“It’s amazing how American people use the [kneeling] symbol for love — the thing that makes the Earth build the future — but also use it to protest injustice and commit injustice,” Baccarat said. “I wanted to know, what is the relationship, the correlation?”
Baccarat is hosting the book’s official launch party on Sept. 16, at the Portland Public Library. The first run of 300 books are already earmarked for financial backers, those involved in the project and local libraries. But Baccarat hopes to print more soon.
Also associated with the book’s release, Baccarat and the Maine Humanities Council will host a public roundtable discussion about equality and justice at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Portland Media Center on Congress Street. Local public-access cable TV channels 2 and 5 will broadcast the event.
The 60-page book contains dozens of pictures and interviews conducted by 10 Maine photographers, including Baccarat. From the start, he knew he wanted it to be a community project and not just a single artist’s effort. To ensure broad diversity of thought, each photographer was in charge of finding their own subjects.
“I’m just the MC, the manager, the one with the concept,” Baccarat said. “I wanted to bring the beautiful energy together, to make them believe this is something important for the community.”
The first photographer he called was photojournalist Tim Greenway, who shot 10 portraits for the project. One of Greenway’s pictures shows Maine playwright and business owner Nancy Valmond-Bell, wearing a Juneteenth T-shirt, kneeling on the stage at Deering Oaks Park. Her right fist is in the air.
In her interview, Valmond-Bell spoke about being followed while shopping because she is Black and employees suspect she might be shoplifting. Valmond-Bell said she chose to kneel on the stage because it’s made of concrete.
“Being on stage gives you courage and strength,” she said. “I’m literally on solid ground.”
Dave Wade, another Maine photographer Baccarat called upon, photographed Daniel Minter, co-founder of Indigo Arts Alliance, a Portland organization that promotes artists of color.
In the portrait, shot in profile, Minter is down on his left knee in front of pictures of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. A Black man, Minter said he grew up in southern Georgia, not far from where Arbury was murdered while jogging through a white neighborhood.
Wade said he believes Baccarat’s book is important at this time, given recent news about white supremacist groups organizing and marching in Maine.
“They have an agenda but we also have an agenda,” Baccarat said. “Our agenda is the agenda of peace, of tolerance — the agenda of love.”