Reconstruction Notes on the Landscape in Richmond, Va - 2015
An artists book examining buried history in Richmond.
Contemporary photographic images of nine locations in Richmond, Virginia are overlaid with letterpressed excerpts of historical text and handwritten personal memories. Each image, when held to the light, reveals notes which unpack the invisible, personal, historical trauma present at each site. Sites are ordered chronologically and present a narrative arc, encompassing the growth of the slave trade, acts of organized resistance and repression, the Civil War, and concluding following Reconstruction. These layers work to extract meaning from the illegible coding of contemporary landscapes and artifacts and make visible the human drama concealed in the mundane and overlooked corners of a postmodern city.
Letterpress, blind deboss, and color photocopy on mulberry paper and tracing paper. Stab bound. 16 x 5 x .25 inches closed. 32 pages. Edition of 5
Press: 1
Ten of the Slaves concerned in the late insurrection, were executed on Friday Last. GABRIEL, and two of his accomplices, in this city; two near Four mile creek; and five others near the Brook.
-Virginia Argus, Tuesday, Oct. 14 1800