“The memorial is a circle, a continuous ring never ending, an opening for people to step inside and contemplate, to learn what slavery was about. For the community, I hope it enlightens young and old, and reminds everyone that slavery was a very evil part of our history.” — UVA Today
Members of the University of Virginia share their personal experiences and connections to the currently-under-construction Memorial to Enslaved Laborers that is taking shape on the campus.
The university’s Board of Visitors has chosen an interdisciplinary team to bring the project to life that includes Höweler+Yoon, UVA alumna Mabel O. Wilson; Frank Dukes, past director of the Institute for Environmental Negotiation in the UVA School of Architecture; Gregg Bleam, a UVA-based landscape architect; and the artist Eto Otitigbe.
'Enslaved Laborers' is language used to humanize the effects of chattel slavery. The distinction being- chattel refers to property and not persons, and is the implicit part of using the phrase slavery.
It's located in an incredibly moving spot. It's located between the corner (read:college strip) the Lawn, and the old medical school at what is one of the more heavily travelled crosswalks used by current students, touring students, and visitors.
The memorial serves as a marker to recognize the 4,000 plus enslaved laborers that work on on the construction and daily activities on the Lawn. Names are not mentioned simply because there are no complete records (reference chattel slavery: the activity of "things" is not thoroughly recorded, just their output). If you are curious about specific names and activities I would suggest following the @slaveryuva twitter feed.
The monument bears witness to the enslaved and people through the circular form that references the "Ring Shout" dance. This formal move allows the designers to create a space to acknowledge the past through mediation and education (it's about the size of a small classroom). One, hundreds, or thousands of names of are not recognized, but their spirit is recognized.
Before there are any comments about the uselessness of vague or abstract forms, consider that when you look at the Washington monument- which is devoid of any clear articulation of who it recognizes- it's just assigned based on convention/tradition/culture (the way we've "always" imbued meaning). I'd argue that the shape of the UVa Memorial is more directly referential than the Washington monument.
Perhaps if students are required to learn the meaning of a large tower that tapers to a point- because it is abstract shape with an applied concept- it might be possible to expand our understanding of more formal symbolisms and historical spaces to include marginalized peoples and gendered spaces.
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What is the difference between a 'Memorial to Enslaved Laborers' and a 'Slave Memorial'? Were any of the descendents of the slaves that actually built the Rotunda and Lawn consulted; their opinions sought? It took a decade to come up with this antiseptic, bloodless, anemic thing that manages to reflect badly both on UVa and to trivialize the people who physically built the college. It looks like someone 'memoralized' the alledged site of a 1940s flying saucer landing.
DeTeasa Gathers, a member of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers Community Engagement Committee, and her husband Don Gathers watched the first stone of the memorial being hoisted into place on Wednesday.
Gathers was surprised by the family resemblance to the woman, who it turns out was her great-great-grandmother, Peggy Ragland Brown Spears. Gathers (whose single name was Brown) was even more surprised to find out that the photo is housed in the Holsinger Studio Collection in UVA’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.
In fall 2016, the Board of Visitors selected the Boston firm Höweler+Yoon to design the memorial, and included as part of the design team alumna Mabel O. Wilson, an architectural historian at Columbia University who published “Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture”; Frank Dukes, co-founder of UCARE and past director of the Institute for Environmental Negotiation in the UVA School of Architecture; and Gregg Bleam, a landscape architect who has taught at UVA and worked in and around the University for about 30 years. The artist Eto Otitigbe came on board a couple of years ago.
I mean, seriously, this is too fucking easy. Go read the piece.
Months of research and public outreach to the UVA community, alumni and Charlottesville-area residents informed the design of the memorial, which the Board of Visitors approved in June 2017.
Seems like a product of design by committee...very generic
It's hard to know even what this is until you come closer and start reading. Which I think is the point: it invites you to discover it and try to understand, then realize how much there is that can't be shown or sanely figured out. But people are remembered.
. . . it’s being built with local granite, and will have Isabella Gibbons’ eyes always watching, etched on the outside of the larger ring. (Gibbons was a cook owned by physics professor Francis Smith who, after emancipation, became a teacher at the Charlottesville Freedmen’s primary school. A recently built dormitory was named in honor of her and her husband, William, who became a well-known minister.) The smaller ring will feature a water table and timeline of the history of slavery on Grounds; on the tall outer wall, the known names of enslaved workers will be listed.
It is a local monument, and a very quiet one. But it is loud with the enormity of all that it does not show. Imagine all that you think should see here, then realize why, for so many reasons, it is not shown.
Given our times, I'm dreading defacement.
I don’t think memorials should require close inspection to get the point. Should read at multiple scales.
'Enslaved Laborers' is language used to humanize the effects of chattel slavery. The distinction being- chattel refers to property and not persons, and is the implicit part of using the phrase slavery.
It's located in an incredibly moving spot. It's located between the corner (read:college strip) the Lawn, and the old medical school at what is one of the more heavily travelled crosswalks used by current students, touring students, and visitors.
The memorial serves as a marker to recognize the 4,000 plus enslaved laborers that work on on the construction and daily activities on the Lawn. Names are not mentioned simply because there are no complete records (reference chattel slavery: the activity of "things" is not thoroughly recorded, just their output). If you are curious about specific names and activities I would suggest following the @slaveryuva twitter feed.
The monument bears witness to the enslaved and people through the circular form that references the "Ring Shout" dance. This formal move allows the designers to create a space to acknowledge the past through mediation and education (it's about the size of a small classroom). One, hundreds, or thousands of names of are not recognized, but their spirit is recognized.
Before there are any comments about the uselessness of vague or abstract forms, consider that when you look at the Washington monument- which is devoid of any clear articulation of who it recognizes- it's just assigned based on convention/tradition/culture (the way we've "always" imbued meaning). I'd argue that the shape of the UVa Memorial is more directly referential than the Washington monument.
Perhaps if students are required to learn the meaning of a large tower that tapers to a point- because it is abstract shape with an applied concept- it might be possible to expand our understanding of more formal symbolisms and historical spaces to include marginalized peoples and gendered spaces.
Perfect.
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