The Virtue of the Unexpected

THE VIRTUE OF THE UNEXPECTED

February 28th, 2021 | 3:45 PM | Rosewood, FL

"What are people leaving behind? I am going to make note of some ways that people are commemorating at this place (the Rosewood historical marker) today...there is something to this...a ritual of cleansing and commemorating."

The second half of this research became an investigation into finding an process of commemoration alternate of the tectonic expression. The answer to this problem was dicovered, like many facets of the research, at the actual sites of racial trauma.

At the Rosewood historical marker, Visitors or pilgirms would wrap the poles with beads, ribbons and other personal mementoes. Others would write on rocks, branches and leave them at the site (see figure 11) In other locations, like Shiloh Cemetary, people press and bury mementoes into the ground, specifically, shells are pressed in the ground to mark where the dead rest (see figure 12).

In these commemorations, people remember through action, people remember through ritual. To see the evidence of these commemorations when visiting a site, it is to spend time with the previous visitors, it is to share in the quiet comfort of knowing that one is not alone; these actions tell the story of time.

How could an architectural process of commemoration speak to this level of interactive memory making? A series of material experiments was devised. Each experiment seeks to negotiate a embedded objet trouve and a reciving material, predomintely plaster. These composites are activated and transformed by a collage of material processes, like embedding, carving, digging, etc (see pages 170-181).

The results of these experiments never had the burden of expectations. In contrast to a formal tectonic process, an unexpected process yields artifacts without the weight of authorship (see figure 14). The material, and therefore the history of a place, is allowed the speak louder than the author.

COMMEMORATING

AT THE ROSEWOOD HISTORICAL MARKER

A CATALOG OF COMMEMORATIONS

embed and carve

a tale of three

fleeting material

wrapped while wet

trials by fire

involve by dissolve

fix (an object) firmly and deeply in a surrounding mass. to cut with care or precision to involve completely to remove from a surface by usually repeated strokes of an edged instrument to act upon through steady pushing or thrusting force exerted in contact