Davidson College has unveiled its plans for a new memorial to the enslaved and exploited people whose hands built the 186-year-old liberal arts institution. The design effort of the sculpture titled “With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited” will be led by Perkins&Will in collaboration with Hank Willis Thomas.
The artist of Boston's new commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King will deliver a similar monumental bronze sculpture that emerges prominently from a refuge-like space nearby the campus’s original Oak and Elm buildings.
Thomas was selected for the commission following a two-year search process led by alumni that reflects similar reconciliation efforts at Brown University, The College of William & Mary, UNC Chapel Hill, and perhaps most notably, the Höweler+Yoon project at the University of Virginia spearheaded by alumna Mabel O. Wilson.
“This is a very kind of important time in American history where we are actually learning how to reconcile with the past, especially not the prettiest and most honorable parts of the past,” Thomas said. “And the way we do that in education, the way we do that in storytelling in the media, but also in physical space, is really unprecedented. I think it’s almost a call to action for cities and colleges and universities and libraries across the country to really acknowledge the lives that were sacrificed and exploited so that we get to have the luxuries that we do today.”
Perkins&Will's Practice Leader for Corporate, Civic, Commerical and Cultural Practice, Malcolm Davis, added: “Other institutions are embarking on similar endeavors, but I give Davidson a lot of credit for the way they’ve gone about this as a process. There is something to be learned by the way Davidson has proceeded. Engaging alumni and others to be part of the planning is a fantastic way to come at this work. We have felt that sincerity from the alumni organizations and from the artistic community. There’s so much support for getting this right.”
A construction timeline has not yet been made available by the college. Malcolm Davis' further description of the project can be viewed in the video below.
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This is not a token gesture. It is a sizable monument in the center of the oldest part of the campus, well-traveled, close to town, between the theater center and the church. Students will pass it daily when they go to the post office to get their mail. And it is impressive—strong and expressive. Kudos to DC.
powerful - looks like it will be much more successful than the one..
boston* one
Memorials are often physical markers indicating a forced conclusion to incomplete stories. As an attempt to draw a line from the past to the present, these objects and sites neglect ongoing discovery and collective identity.
The Davidson College Commemorative Site for Enslaved and Exploited People will support varied experiences — multiple journeys through an unfinished story unfolding from the present moment toward our past and future. Essential to the design are intentional voids that are suggestive of lost historical knowledge as well as literal spaces to hold references to future discoveries.
From the project page, https://www.withthesehands.design/
The first paragraph could apply to many monuments, but it is especially relevant in the South, where Civil War memorials, among so much else, encourage a blindness that fixes its people in a rigid perception of themselves and their past, locking them into that perception, preventing them from understanding themselves and their world, from moving forward. Not only does such behavior lead them to hurt others—it is too often defined by rigidity and exclusion and opposition—it also causes them to hurt themselves.
The Thomas memorial, on the other hand, looks frankly at the past but keeps options open and allows for change. It deserves attention and serves as an example for what can be done now, esthetically, honestly, positively.
Wokeaphopes are treating such attention as some kind of forced imposition from arbitrary and unseen powers. That is paranoia. Nothing could be further from the truth here. The memorial was a willing choice by the school and alums and many others, who put much thought and emotion into the project. It reflects how Davidson wants to remember the past and see itself today, and it will guide the school daily, in the years to come. It is a living memorial.
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