Artists in their Element
By Alice French, Director of Education
At Menokin, we think about architectural preservation not only from the view of the structure itself or through the eyes of the makers who create the space. We also are keenly aware of the deeper understanding of a place that comes from the memory of soil. I think about this all the time when I walk the old roads at Menokin, traverse through the woodlands, paddle along the marshy creek. There is both a physical memory erected from the natural resources of this landscape leaving a marker of the people who created these ruins, and there is the spiritual memory intrinsic to the material of this landscape and waterscape, where the footsteps of hundreds maybe thousands of lives is evoked through the the past, preserved within this landscape.
Today, several artists have found ways to weave these memories of soil with this work of a place. Their research and art have formed new expressions for interpreting the historical and architectural realms which we preserve. I believe these new views allow for new understandings and relationships about our past and initiate new conversations on how we think about our collective history.
Sonya Clark, Edifice & Mortar, 2018
From the artist’s website:
Medium: hand stamped bricks, human hair, and glass
Description: To approximate an American flag, the brick wall is thirteen brick rows high with a blue mirror. The mirror reflects the viewers. The front of the wall is stamped with words from the Declaration of Independence. The mortar is made from hair collected from African American salons in Richmond, Virginia, one of the major historical slave ports. The piece made its debut at Declarations, the inaugural exhibit of the Institute of Contemporary Art, in Richmond, Virginia.
Edifice and Mortar, Sonya Clark
Raina Martens & Bii Robertson, Public Soil Memory for the Plantationocene, 2019
From the artist’s website:
Medium: local soil, clay, three channel audio
Description: A site-specific multimedia work installed on the grounds of the Sandy Spring Museum… Using soil as a starting place and medium for remembering, the piece told the elided story of the severe soil degradation that resulted from the plantation system’s tobacco monoculture and slave-labor practices. Based on research conducted in the Museum’s archive, this piece challenged the dominant historical narrative of manumission and invited viewers to think about the contemporary ecological crisis in the context of enslavement and racialized violence.
Public Soil Memory for the Plantationocene, Raina Martens and Bii Robertson
Dineo Seshee Bopape, “and - in. the light of this. _______”, 2017
From the artist’s website:
Medium: Mixed media site-specific installation Moulded and compressed soil structures, feathers, brass uterus forms, clay pieces moulded by a clenched fist, flowers, white fabric, 18 carat gold leaf, loose soil, healing herbs.
Description: Using experimental video montages, sound, found objects, photographs and dense sculptural installations, her artwork "engages with powerful socio-political notions of memory, narration and representation.
“and - in. the light of this. _______” Dineo Seshee Bopape. Solo presentation of works at the Darling Foundry Montreal, image courtesy of the artist and the Darling Foundry.