Conjuring the Past

TO PRESERVE THEIR FREEDOM

January 26th, 2021 | 11:01 AM

Yesterday in studio I painted a watercolor drawing that depicted the atmosphere of a tragic event that happened during the Rosewood story. I drew it in the hope of conjuring up the past. A way of depicting the event in which I intend to translate to architecture. A middle, visual and atmospheric ground between words and architectural language. I am happy with this method of working. It beings my soul closer to the event: I begin to be washed with fear, anger; I gain empathy through doing. Sleeping on the process and drawing last night, I woke up today with a bit of sadness. I conjured an evil event: black bodies being thrown in the ground, a tragic return to nature. I feel guilty. As if I am celebrating this event. I know, at my heart, that I am not. But I do not want to communicate the wrong message, I must be aware of where my focus lies.

I saw a painting as I scrolled through Instagram in the morning, To Preserve Their Freedom, 1988 by Jacob Lawrence. It depicts Haitian men, women and children rising to fight a Napoleonic colonist invasion in the 1800s. It is triumphant. Not in the way of depicting a hero, but depicting the will to fight for freedom. As if the gods of the internet blessed me with this finding, this painting is a reminder to myself to celebrate, in addition to mourn. Instead of relying solely on the tragedy of these two stories, I too must celebrate and acknowledge the lives of the brave men and women who fought to preserve their freedom at Rosewood and Newberry. I can, and should do both. It takes me back to the poetic lens in which I worked through last semester. In some moments I am writing an eulogy, in some I am writing an ode, perhaps to bring these together in a measured and rhythmic way, to compose the two modes of viewing history together is to write the Ballad of Rosewood and the Ballad of the Newberry Six.

Figure 10, sketch diagram of a translation exercise.