rates and access to healthcare are also affected by the Delmar Divide. As illustrated by these statistics, architectural space in St. Louis has a dramatic impact on income, education and health. Before coming to WashU, Lebo had already begun an artistic practice that critiqued the cultural consequences of the built environment. Several of her early works reveal how power can literally be architected by deconstructing the physical and ideological underpinnings of designed spaces. In Lebo’s Living Room, several nude women serve as various pieces of furniture: a television stand, a chair, a sofa, a lamp and coffee table. The soft, curvilinear forms of the nude female form clash against the hard, rectilinear architectural space of the room. Through this composition, Lebo interrogates how physically constructed spaces and societal constructions of gender reaffirm each other, visualizing how women become marginalized when they are sequestered to the private sphere. In Lebo’s painting, women are not just permanent fixtures of domestic space as the homemaking and child-rearing counterpart to men; they literally become domestic fixtures — immobilized and peripheral.
COMMUNITY VOICES
Currently a second-year graduate student, Lebo has pushed her work beyond a critique of the consequences of architectural space to more actively undermining oppressive power regimes expressed by the built environment. This has involved a practice that includes working away from the canvas, as seen in her installations Dripping Fat onto the Lawn and Saturate. Through these three-dimensional works, Lebo more directly engages the bodily experience of the built environment. At over seven feet tall, the sheer size of Dripping Fat onto the Lawn makes it an
Rachel Lebo, Living Room (photo credit: Lacy Murphy)
imposing structure. Saturate, an installation constructed of pigmented glue, canvas, acrylic house paint and 2 x 4 lumber, occupies and transforms an entire room. Both Dripping Fat onto the Lawn and Saturate resolutely constitute an architectural space of their own rather than the illusion of one, providing a more physical experience for the viewer than Lebo’s earlier painted works. Lebo’s sociological inquiry into architecture reveals, critiques and resists the ramifications of the way we design the world around us. Her artistic progression during her time at WashU suggests that artistic education takes place not only in the classroom and studio but integrally through social interactions within a specific geographic location as well.
Whether Lebo’s time as an MFA student in St. Louis — a city where architectural space determines much about identity and experience — has indirectly or directly influenced her practice, it is crucial to remain mindful of the broader contemporary racial and socioeconomic climate. Young artists like Lebo are cutting their teeth during a time where neo-segregationist policies involving architectural constructions (e.g. Trump’s Wall) are becoming increasingly normalized in the discourse. These artists serve as cultural commentators by investigating the impact of these practices as they encourage us all to consider the sociology of architecture. www.samfoxschoo.wustl.edu www.rachellebo.com
THE POWER OF A STORY By Fatima La’Juan Muse
Anansi the spider is a folktale character originating from the Ashanti people of Ghana. Often described as a mischievous trickster, Anansi is far more resilient and wise than cunning. Andre Henderson was a young boy attending Neil Armstrong Elementary school, in Hazelwood Missouri, when an African storyteller regaled his class with tales of Anansi. It was the spiders’ wisdom, intellect and ability to prevail against the odds that appealed to Henderson. 15 ALLTHEARTSTL.COM SPRING 2019
Much like the fabled African hero, Henderson has overcome insurmountable obstacles. On a whim he took an art class as an elective in high school and realized he had a natural talent for drawing. Shortly after graduation while working in a factory his left hand was crushed. “It seemed like everything else in my life, you lose things as you get older.” Along with losing the hope of becoming an artist, Andre found himself homeless for years after having his identity stolen. “When you have nothing, you COMMUNITY VOICES
think there’s nothing they can take from you. Boy was I wrong. They can take so much more.” The road to becoming the man he is today involved being trafficked across the country in a debt scam, losing loved ones, bearing witness to sexual abuse, and physical and emotional pain. However, much like Anansi, Henderson found his way out of these dark and dangerous situations. The little boy in him remembered
