Site Unseen Exhibition Catalogue :: May 2013 by Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa Hardesty Arts Center

by artist EYAKEM GULILAT l FEBRUARY 22 – MAY 19, 2013

Presented by

Kathy McRuiz

Director’s Statement Site Unseen was the inaugural Exhibition and Artist in Residence program presented by the Hardesty Arts Center. Originally from Ethiopia, photographer Eyakem Gulilat was at once an observer of and participant in our community during the spring of 2013. His exhibition was a pivotal series of artistic snapshots taken in and around the area where the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 took place. Together these images formed the backdrop for his residency. Gulilat was in the Creative Studios and out in the community

Statements

collecting and recording stories about the riot. These stories then became part of the overall exhibition. This catalog represents just a portion of the larger exhibition. For Gulilat, Site Unseen is just the beginning of an ongoing story. The Board of Directors and Staff of the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, along with our generous donors, have positioned the Hardesty Arts Center to be different. The vision for gallery programs is to embrace all cultures through contemporary visual arts forms, and to celebrate community when artists and audiences from around the world collaborate to create meaningful visual arts experiences. Site Unseen actualized this vision •

Tumelo Mosaka Curator’s Statement

Site Unseen “All memory is individual, unreproducible – it dies with each person. What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.” -Susan Sontag* Existing historical narratives and memorials

the opportunity to step into the landscape,

remind us of our past in spite of their

to share their narratives, and to carve a place

potential inaccuracies. As memory fades,

in the geography of community.

forgetting sets in. To remember everything is impossible, as is having no memory at all.

The photographic images in Site Unseen

The two co-exist, and as such, the propensity

propose a new way of looking at a marked

to forget makes it critical to remember.

landscape. They create a theatre of possibility for multiple narratives to live side Riot

by side. In as much as they capture evidence

continues today to be a sensitive subject

of history, these works offer the opportunity

that bears commemorating. Questions

for acknowledgement and resolution.

The

legacy

the

Tulsa

Race

of memorialization have always shrouded the subject, which for some people has

Concerned with the interplay between

little relevance in their lives today. For

reality and fiction, the images in Site Unseen

others, it remains an unhealed wound

suggest an alternative reality that ultimately

that needs further attention. Concerns

fuses separate visions of history to create

are often unspoken and therefore likely to

new meaning. For photographer Eyakem

be forgotten, lending importance to the

Gulilat, it becomes less critical to identify

pivotal work embodied in the Site Unseen

who authors the history, but rather more

exhibition. Artist Eyakem Gulilat offers

importantly, to ask the question, “when does

individuals from racially divided communities

your history become my history?”•

*Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003. 85–88. Print.

Eyakem Gulilat Artist’s Statement

Site Unseen is a photographic survey of

Black Wall Street which empowered the African

North Tulsa which, in the 1920’s, was known as Black

American community in the 1920’s. Since then, the

Wall Street or “Little Africa”. What remains of this

land has been transferred to different hands. Who

area currently are plaques along Greenwood Avenue

owns the land today and what does it mean to be

testifying to the thriving businesses that once formed

the land owner?

and sustained the African American Community. My plan for this project was to trace the history of this

I am also interested in items left behind which echo

geographic location back to the Tulsa Race Riot

voices of the past. The domestic elements preserved

of 1921 and photograph what is left of the space

by the Greenwood Cultural Center in Mable B. Little

today. Because of the changes that have taken place

Heritage House Museum, for example, help us draw

through urban renewal and re-settlement, I chose to

personal connections to the people who lived within

expand the region to where some of the people have

the community. They remind of us the fruit of the

moved. The areas I visited include East Archer Street

black community’s labor, resilience and success.

to the south, the L.L. Tisdale Parkway to the west,

Through these glimpses we can briefly imagine life

North Lansing Avenue to the east, and East Apache

from a previous era into existence. In the same way, I

Street to the north.

am curious about the objects found in the landscape today. Along my own journey within the landscape,

I wanted to observe the changes that took place

I’ve discovered items ranging from wild growing

in this location in the last 100 years and how the

onions to old brass pipes stuck deep within the soil.

place holds the memory of this great tragedy. In

Together these items help us imagine the people

many ways, the land is an unbiased witness. Using

who have lived within this space over the last century

landscape photography as a constant witness to the

and those who continue to inhabit this space today.

lives and events from the past, I imagine the houses that may have existed and the people who may have

I am curious about people and their stories; as I

dwelled here. If the empty stairways could speak

further explored the areas of North Tulsa I found

what would they say? What kind of conversations

individuals interested in sharing their own knowledge

does this space hold for us to sift through and find?

of the Tulsa Race Riot as well as their connections

At the same time, the ownership of the land itself

to the space. The portraits reveal those who were

is very interesting. The African Americans originally

willing to engage with me in this conversation. The

came to this location in search of a viable way to

people in the photos have either lived or continue to

sustain their lives. This was essentially the birth of

live or hold jobs within North Tulsa •

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 4' x 35'

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 22" x 24"

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 35" x 50"

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 22" x 24"

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 22" x 22"

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 22" x 24"

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 28" x 32"

Taft at Nine

by Patrick A. Newman Jan. 20, 2013 Last fall I sat on the front porch of a house where I

I grew up with that story feeling that I was the only

have my office at the NE corner of 16th and Carson.

one of my peers who knew it. I probably was right,

As I looked towards the two large houses catty

at least as far as my white friends were concerned.

corner from me I felt a chill. I was reading Fire in

Now it all seems tied together in a backward knot

Beulah, a historical fiction account of the Tulsa Race

of memory. My father telling me truth about Tulsa,

Riot by Rilla Askew. The main frame of the story takes

the town he loved, taking me to Pine Street Christian

place right where I was looking. And as I read I kept

Church to hear the great music in celebration of

missing my father, wanting to ask him more questions

their paying off the note on their organ. His success

and thank him for wounding my innocence about this

in hiring the first Black man to be in the sprinkler

town I love; so long ago.

union, my years at Central High School being one of the two white players on a team whose main

When I was old enough to go with him, but too young

rival was no longer Will Rogers, but now Booker

to work yet my father would take me on day trips to

T. Washington. And now continuing the journey at

job sites. He and my uncle ran a business started in

my church, planning to move back downtown, two

1946 installing automatic fire sprinkler systems. One

blocks from my old high school, near the old dividing

summer day probably 1959 my dad called home and

line between white Tulsa and Greenwood, Black Wall

my mom handed me the phone and a few minutes

Street.

later I was in the cab of the ‘57 Studebaker pickup heading toward a job they were doing in Muskogee.

I recommend the book. But if you haven’t grown up

On the way back following the blue highways he

knowing the story or living on that edge, the sounds

knew by heart, he made a turn into a small town, a

and shame might not be as visceral. For me that

village really. We drove slowly.... everyone I saw was

wound was a blessing, it keeps my heart open and

black. He pulled the truck over and asked me what I

my passion alive. I graduated from Central in 1968,

noticed. That’s when he told me about how this town

just about a month and a half after Martin Luther

came to be what it was, a refuge. He told me about

King was assassinated. My kids went through the

the race riot. I don’t remember all the details I just

magnate program and graduated from Booker T,

remember how upset he was about people being

where I loved to watch the basketball games, and

shot on site and the fires and these people coming

today I worship here where the journey continues.

here because they were too afraid to ever live in Tulsa

One that for me started in Taft at nine •

again. He told me the name of the town was Taft.

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 28" x 32"

Tulsa has been my home since birth. All I know is Tulsa. My experiences here have been good and bad. Growing up life was painful. I’ve done and seen things that a kid at my age shouldn’t have been exposed to. I found myself in a lot of bad situations with people. I’ve had people try and kill me over stupid things like fights. My mother was negligent and abusive. The anger she had towards men was taken out on me. A lot of my friends here are doing little to nothing with their lives. Friend is a funny word to use for them, because I found out that a lot of them really weren’t my friends. While dealing with homelessness and other issues, I found that a lot of my ‘friends’ didn’t really care about me. My journal and drawings kept me company during this time. It helped me cope and still does today •

Untitled Archival Pigment Ink Print 28" x 32"

Installation Photos Hardesty Arts Center

Presented by

An Initiative of the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa Curated by Tumelo Mosaka Community Partner John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation Presenting Sponsors Jean Ann + Tom Fausser

Sponsors Ken Busby Scott Hamilton Kathy McRuiz Susan Fuller Palmer Pat Schroeder Joan + Harry Seay Edith + Glenn Wilson Special Thanks Marc Carlson Lee Roy Chapman Greenwood Cultural Center Jesse Miller Tulsa Historical Society Julie + Bill Watson The Beryl Ford Collection Rotary Club of Tulsa Tulsa City-County Library

101 East Archer Street l Tulsa, Oklahoma l www.AHHAtulsa.org