Part of being American is to reckon with our past and memorialize it. The work presented here began in spring 2020, when the quick succession of murders—Ahmaud Arbery • Breonna Taylor • George Floyd—gave rise to a local Black Lives Matter demonstration and compelled the artist to post, in her majority-White community, portrayals of shocking evidence of anti-Black police violence. She continued to write these portrayals, evocative of epitaphs, which are a form of elegy. The elegies stir people afflicted directly and indirectly by police brutality. A Living Memorial , searchable by name, date, or location, is the online version of her evolving public artwork, A Memorial Field, that grew in scope over a five-year period while it was installed at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, New York. Resources from conversations organized to elicit dialogue around issues of racial equity and justice are presented plus a downloadable history of voting rights.
ABOLITION
What is abolition? Beyond its history, it is the response to an injustice that deeply shocks your psyche. You wake up to a keen sense of what is right and wrong. You use your skillset to nurture a different way and to grow an effective engagement to end harm. Your imagination and your identity are now rooted in abolition, a comprehensive, courageous movement to redefine safety, justice, and relation in America.
EDUCATION
Why is our country’s history of racism repressed or distorted in schools? Why are patterns of harm hidden or denied? White families have long had the privilege of not talking about racism. Dig into hidden histories to find facts that contradict a complacency around you. Your awareness grows of complicitness in systems of oppression. You find the courage to reimagine policing in America.
COMMUNITY
How do you make contact with people who recognize your passion? Your spark leads to a larger network of support. You touch a difficult subject and learn how breaking the silence touches a nerve, and why the struggle to provoke social responsibility makes us alive to our everyday surroundings. Courage anchors our commitment to redefine our relationships. Courage endures. Even if the dream is confounding, you facilitate authentic possibility and nurture joyful connection.
