RSVP for Unmonument Bellefonte: Weaving Histories

About the Project:

Unmonument is an architectural project conceived around a nomadic sculpture conceived as an ‘exquisite corpse’ exercise, meant to refuse the traditional idea of monuments and inspire collective action.

Following a pilot run by Amanda Williams and V. Mitch McEwen
at the 2023 Chicago.

Architecture Biennial, Unmonument’s year-long run began with an installation from Olalekan Jeyifous in Brooklyn, NY followed by Felecia Davis (Bellefonte), J. Yolande Daniels (Los Angeles), and Emanuel Admassu (Atlanta).

We conceive of this “Unmonument” as peripatetic and ephemeral; a site-less and multi-sited set of activations that revisit 5 of the 10 cities featured in the BRC member’s separate installations for the “Reconstructions” exhibit which opened at the Museum of Modern Art at the end of February, 2021.

CHICAGO

BROOKLYN

BELLEFONTE

LOS ANGELES

ATLANTA

The “Unmonument” is proposed as an iterative and itinerant Exquisite Corpse that will engage its local and international communities in a “call and response” activated by a series of prompts and provocations that will be initiated by our collective as a means of exploring the impact and import of the “Liberators and Self-Liberated Communities” in a contemporary context where the infrastructure and viability of the American Dream, we have long fought to gain access to, has been found deeply wanting.

UNMONUMENT
CHICAGO: AFTER WORK

Excerpt of a Film by Zion Estrada and Mitch McEwen Archival Research by Cammy McEwen

A palimpsest assemblage film. Inspired by close readings of archival material on plantation worker strikes preceding the Great Migration, 2,340 Miles from 1880 stages an abstract meditation on Black work stoppage as a recursive and aesthetic practice, through found video, archival papers, photography, & original soundtrack. With a visual & sonic meditation on Black strikes and the Mississippi River as a flow of Black rebellion, this piece of cinema-as-archive-as-monument layers words and objects to speculate events that moved between Louisiana & Chicago. With found footage, original digital drawings & archival papers from the Amistad Research Center, the 12-minute video follows the flow of archives from rebellions on the plantation to ephemera at the South Side Chicago Arts Center, from ecosystemic destruction to a sense of the Great Migration as a fantasy space & a film waiting to be lived. 2,340 Miles from 1880 charts along the 2,340 miles of the Mississippi River a montage of Black life on the move and in the chorus of the multitude, where the stillness of watching a film and halting work on a petrochemical plant or a plantation tracks closely to lighting it all on fire. Weighted by Delta binaural frequencies, found sounds and field recordings, the film’s sonic layering forms an extension of deep listening as rebellion practice.

In association with the Chicago Architecture Biennial and hosted by Blanc Gallery, the Black Reconstruction Collective (BRC) presented UNMONUMENT CHICAGO: AFTER WORK, the first of 6 research-driven installments that will travel to sites throughout Black America. An industrial lift customized by olalekan jeyifous hosted audio, visual, and text components to support the gathering of a film screening. UNMONUMENT CHICAGO: AFTER WORK included the premier of the film 2,340 Miles from 1880 by Zion Estrada in collaboration with V. Mitch McEwen with archival research by Cammy McEwen. Inspired by close readings of archival material on plantation worker strikes preceding the Great Migration, 2,340 Miles from 1880 stages an abstract meditation on Black work stoppage as a recursive and aesthetic practice, through found video, archival papers, photography, and original soundtrack.

UNMONUMENT CHICAGO: AFTER WORK marked the first time that the BRC’s creative collaborative practice has extended beyond the ten founding members and awarded fellows.

BRC presented this UnMonument to the Great Migration and from the Great Migration for the Chicago Architecture Biennial 5: “This is a Rehearsal.” Hosted by Blanc Gallery, UNMONUMENT CHICAGO: AFTER WORK was presented alongside AT FIRST GLANCE (Oct 14 – November 25 2023), the third installment of Patric McCoy’s poetic collection of Black male vernacular photography, curated by Viktor L. Ewing-Givens.

UNMONUMENT BROOKLYN: CITY REFUGE

UnMonument Brooklyn: City Refuge marked the fourth iteration of Olalekan Jeyifous' visionary “Protopian” Retrofuturist series. A journey that began with "The Frozen Neighborhoods" at MoMA in 2021 as part of the "Reconstructions" exhibit, developing further at Pioneer Works as, "TFN/PFC" for the Climate Justice exhibit, and continuing its evolution at Art Omi earlier this year with his solo exhibition, "Even In Arcadia."

The return to Brooklyn's Weeksville Heritage Center as the first stop of the UnMonument Project was both timely and profound, symbolizing a homecoming for this evocative and evolving body of work. The series explores the potential of harmonizing reconstituted technological detritus with ecological stewardship through narratives of imagined fugitive Black communities throughout Brooklyn, the Hudson Valley, and Upstate New York. Each iteration of this collection of works reflects on resistance, resilience, and restoration, drawing inspiration from the Maroon communities of the Americas and the Caribbean. Sharing these inventive depictions of liberated enclaves from alternate worlds at the historic site of one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America is both a triumph and an honor.

UnMonument Brooklyn: City Refuge unfolded over three days of themed activations including:

Sacred Heaven, a film screening and intimate conversation on Oasis and Self Liberated Communities. Aural Meadow, an open source library and sound odyssey, which featured a reading with Black Discourse, and a sunset sound bath meditation with Kia Islam. Followed by an Exodus Oasis Party sunset celebration with DJ sets, drinks and food.