#angryredpanda

A chill day in the house

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🍂 🍁 🎑 🍁🍂

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Whitfield Lovell's "Passages" exhibit, which just made its final tour stop in San Antonio, TX.

Deep River

Evokes Civil War-era Camp Contraband (Chattanooga, Tennessee), once the location of a vibrant community of more than 5,000 freedmen and escaped slaves whose labor created much of the city's infrastructure.

During the Civil War many runaway slaves made the dangerous journey across the Tennessee River to a Union Army site referred to as “Camp Contraband.” There they were given asylum and shielded from being captured or returned to their owners.

A spiral of 56 circular wooden foundry molds of various sizes bears the true-to-life portrait (1860s - 1950s) of an African American whose identity has been forgotten. In the center of the room, a large, fragrant mound of earth is strewn with personal effects suggestive of the artifacts carried and left behind by people inhabiting transitional, liminal spaces. Large video images of the Tennessee River cover the walls of the space.

“I see the so-called ‘anonymous’ people in these vintage photographs as being stand-ins for the ancestors I will never know. I see history as being very much alive. One day, 100 years from now, people will be talking about us as history. The way I think about time is very different – I don’t think it really was very long ago that these things happened, it wasn’t that long ago that my grandmother’s grandmother was a slave.”

Visitation: The Richmond Project

Pays tribute to the African American community of Jackson Ward (Richmond, Virginia). An exquisitely rendered mural-sized tableau suggests some of the individuals who inhabited this community. Boxes of Lincoln pennies on the floor reference Jackson Ward's St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, the 1st bank to be founded by an African American, and the 1st bank to be founded by a woman. The bank provided Black-owned businesses with an avenue to success, despite Richmond's oppressively discriminatory practices.

Entering the furnished parlor/dining room transports visitors back in time. Newspapers are stacked on a piano bench, a stack of letters waits to be opened, the table is set for supper, and a radio plays quiet, period music. Drawings of a smartly dressed man and woman on the walls of the room suggest the inhabitants of this intimate space. You feel as if you're in the presence of ghosts.

The Reds (2021–22)

Drawings of Black individuals rendered on vibrant red paper in black shadowboxes. They are presented alongside a red rotary telephone that allows visitors to listen to the Black National Anthem; composed in 1900, the hymn's lyrics speak to adversity, optimism, and triumphant resilience.

Happy Halloween 🔪🩸

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Needed some 🌞

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