“Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.” —Maya Angelou (1928–2014)
How can we expand opportunities for each other while changing harmful systems?
Through this work I’ve learned that all of us leave a mark on the world in our own way. Possibilities may seem intangible when we work alone, like many of us did during the pandemic. Working in community unlocks unexpected potential in our work. Being in solidarity with a shared sense of accountability and vision for a brighter future put my skills to work for the greater good.
Gone, Not Forgotten, 2023 video collaboration with Michael Hart and Ren Davidson Seward as a metaphor that describes an interior landscape of loss and transcendence.
The call for abolition struck me to the core when the evidence for Ahmaud Arbery’s brutal slaying was subverted in 2020. How could I convey the depth of my sorrow and outrage? I sifted through the media bias to find the facts of the lynching. I synthesized those facts down to a few words to communicate how Ahmaud’s life was taken unjustly.
In June 2020, I was invited by Martha Swan, the director of John Brown Lives!, the official friends group of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, New York, to install, as a public statement in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, the first iteration of this memorial in a field adjacent to John Brown’s home. For the next four years, A Memorial Field grew from a shattering look at the history of racially-motivated violence in policing to an emotionally-stirring experience, and a reverential space for remembering and reflecting. It is said to have brought contemporary relevance to the John and Mary Brown farm, a hallowed place where the abolitionist is buried alongside the remains of eleven of his foot soldiers.
More than 200 years before Ahmaud Arbery’s murder in broad daylight, Ida B. Wells, journalist. suffragist and civil rights activist had to find a way not to carry the weight of such hate crimes on her spirit, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Tragically, we are still compelled to fight their fight.
I am indebted to Martha Swan, founder and director of John Brown Lives!, who encouraged me to find my way. Martha and Commissioner Kulleseid’s team at the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation—Alane Ball Chinian, Cordell Reaves, and Yolanda Bostic Williams—endorsed the installation, Memorial Field for Black Lives (renamed A Memorial Field in 2022) during a time of international outrage and the Black Lives Matter uprising.
The history of violent assaults on Black bodies motivates me to better understand the ongoing struggle for civil rights in America. Deep leaning led to a second installation, Spiraling ‘Round the Promise of the Right to Vote. Inextricably entwined with the systems of oppression that vies to keep people of color from full participation in the franchise are voting rights, a subject especially relevant to the John Brown Farm.
A long list of friends, collaborators, facilitators, and accountability partners follows in quasi chronological order of the moment their support fed into a steadfast belief in the work. For each of you, I have boundless gratitude.
—Ren Davidson Seward, artist
Peter Seward
Jerilea Zempel
Nancy Sinkoff & Gary Dreiblatt
Nell Painter & Glenn Shafer
Martha Swan, John Brown Lives!
Benita Law-Diao
Alice Paden Green
Linda Friedman Ramirez
Amy Godine
Brendan Mills, Cheryl Craft, John O’Neill, and the staff
and volunteers at John Brown Farm State Historic Site
Cordell Reaves
Yolanda Bostic Williams
Charlie Burnham and Fred Cash
Kathy & Arthur Morey
Eleanor Stein and Jeff Jones
Tiffany Rea-Fisher, artistic director, EMERGE125
Erica Blunt, composer, Twelve45
Daesha Devón Harris
Ellen Driscoll
Steven Manning
Jane Haugh
Betsey Thomas-Train
Archie Shire
Tom Morello
Stephanie Ratcliffe, Director, The Wild Center
Ellen Bettmann
Curt Stager and Kary Johnson
Paul Hai, Timbuctoo Institute
Anna Forsman
Aaron Mair
David Goodman
Nancie Battaglia, photographer
Fred Balzac
Dr. Louis J. DeCaro
Dr. Martin T. Tyler and Mignon Tyler
Peter Neill
Marie Campbell, Blooms by Marie
Bear Fox, singer, songwriter
Russell Banks
Raoul Peck
Bella Desai and Christopher Mulè, Creatives Rebuild New York
Kathy Bonavist
Shawndel N. Fraser
Mike Bishop
Michael Hart, filmmaker
Mark Hofschneider, Counterpoint Media
This project is made possible with funds from John Brown Lives!, Dr. Alice Green’s Center for Law and Justice in Albany, and Creatives Rebuild New York. Additional support was received from the Statewide Community Regrants program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts.
