Search results | Digital Grinnell

Title: Bondage and Freedom
Description: This block memorializes the pain and violence inflicted on black bodies in both Haiti and America during the time of slavery. The artist has placed drawings of an active foot and hand, body parts most commonly immobilized by chains and ropes during slavery, at the center of this piece, and surrounded them with leaves, flowers, keys, broken chains, drops of blood, and long-lost pieces of jewelry, items evocative of a past left behind and destroyed at the hands of slavery. These items appear to rotate in a circle around the foot and hand caught in the moments before taking a step or lifting the page of a book, giving the piece an element of movement and the feeling of ceaseless change. This piece encourages the viewer to remember the terribleness of physical bondage and enslavement, yet it also celebrates the liberation from these chains and the physical freedom many of us have come to take for granted. Furthermore, it reminds us to always keep moving towards a brighter future no matter what we may have left behind.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25502

Title: Chaos
Description: Unlike many of the blocks in this piece, this block is not tied to an individual story or person but rather attempts to show an idea. The block is centered around an image of a head both human and alien, evoking emotions such as pain, fear, and sadness. These are the emotions associated with colonialism and violence, of oppression and disease, and were likely felt by Haitians at the time of the revolution. While this musical being appears cry and mourn, it also inspires a sense of power and awe in the viewer, similar to the feeling of power that many Haitians were beginning to sense as the revolution took hold of Haiti. This block, while more abstract than others, contributes to the abolitionist story by recognizing the role of terror and chaos, while representing the relationship between pain and strength, fear and power.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25503

Title: In Honor of Mary Touvestre
Description: This block honors Mary Touvestre, a freed slave who risked her life to protect the Union army from a disastrous naval attack. This block includes an image of the plans for the Confederate ship The Merrimack, plans that were once stolen by Mary Touvestre, a housekeeper for a Confederate engineer in Norfolk. After hearing the engineer speak about the importance of the ship, Touvestre recognized the danger it imposed upon the Union’s naval forces who were blockading Norfolk’s supplies from Europe, imploring her to steal the plans for the ship and embark on a 195 mile trip through enemy lines to inform the Department of the Navy in Washington of the impending danger. In this block, the danger posed by the ship is highlighted by nails embedded around the head of the warship. The tangling string that weaves through the block depicts the length of the journey, and the risk shouldered by a black woman traveling on foot through Confederate lands. Touvestre report urged officials to speed up plans for constructing an ironclad ship for the Union army, saving them from an ugly attack for which they would not have been prepared. If Touvestre had never provided the intelligence, the USS Merrimac would have been given several more unchallenged weeks to quite possibly disrupt the Union’s blockade of Norfolk. The purpose of this block is to celebrate and honor the countless slaves and freed blacks living within Confederate regions who risked their lives to serve the Union army. In this piece, we also recognize the wider sacrifices made by black people to support a country that has continued to deny them humanity and safety.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25508

Title: The Man, The Machine
Description: This block depicts the transformation of the cotton and slave industries after the invention of the cotton gin. It aims to capture small sober reminders that enslaved peoples were commodities in the eyes of the United States, their only intended purpose to advance capital and power within the nation. When considering how to visualize freedom we must also consider how to re-imagine profit. Representing the intersection between bodies and profit, this block asks observers a simple question: Is the slave nothing more than an outdated cotton gin?
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25491

Title: The Storm
Description: The center image of this block, placed on the very bottom of the mold so as to appear farthest from the viewer, depicts the capital city of Port-au-Prince after the magnitude 3.1 hurricane which devastated the island in 2010. In this piece, the city is divided by a trail of nails; the buildings on the left side of the nails had received government funding for repair and the buildings on the right did not. The national poverty that necessitated this divide is one of the many ailments that plague formerly colonized nations; either you submit to imperial rule, or suffer economic consequences so often brushed aside as “third world problems.” In popular images of Port-au-Prince the right side of this picture is often cut out, eliminating the catastrophe from contemporary memory and thereby erasing the physical and emotional trauma caused by the disaster. The left side of this block depicts an ideal Haiti. A land warmed and nurtured by bright sunshine, this Haiti is known for its brightly colored houses and shell-speckled beaches, represented here with colorful sequins, marbles, and sea glass. The set of keys, paired with reflective shapes evocative of windows, call to mind a welcoming community where every family has a home. The right side of the block, however, represents the true Haiti. Economic class seems fixed enough to be nailed down. The black and amber stones represent Haiti’s crippling dependance on oil and external revenue, and the true Haiti is seen here still entangled in the net of poverty and colonialism. While this Haiti may seem grim, it is comprised of tools which can be used to build a brighter future. Buttons, screws, nails, and netting may look like detritus to some, but can transform into implements with which to achieve a more idyllic Haiti.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25514

Title: Veneer
Description: At the center of this block is a photograph of Haitian slaves harvesting sugar cane before the revolution. Look closely at the image and focus on the people’s faces. How is this photograph different from other images of plantation slavery? Look closer and you may realize that the photograph is placed on top of another image, covering everything but the outer edges. The pictures we see and the stories we tell may not reveal the entire truth, and some narratives of the past mask another’s reality. Perhaps history should not be viewed as a timeline, with one image placed next to another, but should look more like an overused scrapbook; you must peel one image away to reveal another.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25497