Spring Exhibition 2019
History in Richmond
This project began in the fall of 2018 when Laura Browder and I team-taught the first-year seminar Representing Civil Rights in Richmond, whose focus included remembering and honoring past civil rights leaders. We partnered with the Friends of the East End Cemetery, an all-volunteer nonprofit working to reclaim East End Cemetery, a historic African American burial ground. We were also part of East End Cemetery Collaboratory which supports the community’s effort to restore this African American burial ground in the city’s East End that had suffered decades of underfunding and neglect.
With the support of book artist Jen Thomas, students created cut-paper portraits based on photographs of their subjects. Under our guidance, students augmented their cut-paper portrait with text panels that offered biographical information and contextualized their subjects locally, nationally, and internationally. Co-curated by UR Downtone Director Alexandra Byrum, Browder and Herrera, the resulting exhibition opened Spring 2019 in the gallery at University of Richmond Downtown.
Exhibition Details
01
04
“
Designing portraits of the past allowed the students to see themselves in the portraits and therefore, their connection to the past. Once we see ourselves in the past, our present condition becomes more clear, and our position in the future is more secured.
”
01
Class
Our students participated in a joint clean-up of the cemetery where they worked to uncover long-buried headstones, filled up dumpsters, and made headway in some of the most overgrown areas of the cemetery. Using this once-forgotten place as a symbol of racial inequality in our city, the students researched and learned about civil rights activists who were buried there.
02
Collaboration
The East End Cemetery Collaboratory group included faculty from VCU, William and Mary, and University of Richmond, representing a wide range of disciplines—from biology to classics to religious studies. It also included representatives from the Friends of East End volunteer group as well as Brian Palmer and Erin Holloway Palmer, whose journalism and photography had brought attention to the crises faced by Black cemeteries nationwide. Our colleagues brought their students to the cemetery as well, and all of the student research was showcased in an evening symposium.
03
Paper Portraits
In addition to the work our students did, Open High School history teacher Chad Ingold introduced his students to Richmond’s rich and complicated history through field trips and artist visits. Jen Thomas worked with his U.S. History students, who created these original cut-paper portraits of the civil rights leaders they were studying in class. These portraits were exhibited alongside the work of our students at University of Richmond Downtown.
Cut paper portrait by a University of Richmond Student.
These cut paper portraits correlate to the linocuts below.
04
Linocuts
Creating cut-paper portraits and writing text panels allowed students to honor the lives and contributions of Black civil rights leaders, which often remain historically invisible. When we make the lives of Black leaders matter through different expressive mediums, be it through text, art, or performance, we move the social compass towards justice and equality.
University of Richmond students Cindy Ochoa, ’22, and Jacquelin Park, ’21, created these linocut prints at Boatwright Library’s Book Arts Studio under the guidance of Jen Thomas. These prints provided a striking visual introduction to the exhibition.
Click on images to view larger.
