Label Text:
The African Burial Ground National Monument in Lower Manhattan marks the site of the largest and earliest African American cemetery. In use from the 1630s to 1795, the cemetery was uncovered in 1991 at the start of a construction project. Dancy created nearly one hundred artworks in connection to the burial ground, including prints, artist books, and paintings. She said, “Those individuals whose remains were discovered . . . needed and deserved to be named, even if symbolically.”
Since there was no information about the individuals whose remains were unburied (and later reinterred), Dancy inscribed names in her artwork to individualize those who were laid to rest at the graveyard. The names were pulled from probate and estate records that she found as part of her genealogical research.
Lisa Crossman, 2020
Tags:
writing; circles; abstract; shape Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2001.668 |
