“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was….It is emotional memory—what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared. And a rush of imagination is our “flooding.”
—Toni Morrison—
“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was….It is emotional memory—what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared. And a rush of imagination is our “flooding.”
—Toni Morrison—
Blocked at Five Points was created to memorialize the enslaved Africans who were traded at the Crawford Frazier Brokerage House which once stood on the same grounds as Atlanta’s Five Points MARTA Station.
Created to honor the legacy of David T. Howard--a formerly enslaved person who would go on to found one of only two schools that would educate Black students in Atlanta during the period of Jim Crow--this commissioned work re-purposes one of the old growth elm trees that stood on the original school grounds. A series of carved arms with hands cast from elderly members of the school's alumni association reach towards the future emphasizing the legacy of Mr. Howard's powerful vision.
The pounding of millet is an ancient practice among many African cultures. Almost exclusively carried out by women, the repetitive motion plays an essential role in the survival of the community. This modulated mechanized work mimics the choreographed, syncopated movement of grain production in traditional West African communities.