2012, hand-set and polymer letterpress, etching, photolithography, artist-made paper from the artists' clothing, french twist binding, small accordions.
Set of two books and two wall hangings. Two volumes (Past DC; Present DC): 9 x 17 inches. Wall hangings: 30 x 132 inches, 4 copies.
Surveying historical segregation in the District of Columbia, Past Present: DC posits the idea that we are as segregated today as yesterday. We are separated by the same fears, hat, ignorance, and silence. As the nation's capital and as an American city, D.C. is layered with sites of humiliation, trauma, and racial violence that do not need to be within the city's physical borders to become part of the urban grid and psyche. Conveyors of information, outrage, and sentiment within African American communities across the nation.
In PAST Present: DC, text from historic Jim Crow signs of the DC metro area and other American cities aware printed with handset wood and metal type. Text was position to allow the page to act as a reconstituted sign. Listings of area establishments that accepted African American customers came from mid-twentieth century issues of The Negro Motorists Green Book and Travelguide.
The lyrics of popular American songs portray the journey of African American and white residents across the city where The Star-Spangled Banner seems symbolic of independence, songs of significance to the African American community and of prominence in the Civil Rights movement represent the African American citizen's restricted journey. From Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by Wallis Willis to James Weldon Johnson's Lift Every Voice and Sing to A Change is Gonna Come written by Sam Cooke, the songs change in step with the African American citizen's struggles for equity, enfranchisement, and recognition as an American and a human being' as the white citizen's position or primacy as an American has never been in doubt, the representative song The Star Spangled Banner remains static."
In Past PRESENT: DC, the text from popular bumper stickers, the news cycle, and contemporary political rhetoric replace historic Jim Crow era signs. Mirroring the rhetoric and prejudices of the past: African Americans as primates, promiscuous, and un-American, terms overrun the page and compete for attention, page spreads turn into billboards or monitors.
A shift in residents' journeys presents as a reversal of lyric placement. While The Star Spangled Banner still represents the white resident, original text running fluidly across the book picks up where Negro spiritual and popular song lyrics left off in Past Present: DC.
Collections: Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem, Library of Congress, State Library of Queensland, and Yale University.