Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography
Renewal
Artist
Tomie Arai
Year1998
Classification
painting
Medium
ink on canvas
Dimensions90 × 456 × 1 1/4 in. (7.5 × 38 × 0.1 ft.)
Credits
Commissioned through the Art in Architecture Program
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
- "Renewal" is a silkscreened triptych which commemorates the discovery of the African Burial Ground and honors the ancestors of New York's African-American descendant community. In designing this mural, it was my intention to create a meditative work which would encourage passerby to reflect on the lives of the peole who were buried at this historic site.
The mural pays tribute to the first enslaved African Americans whose labor helped to build colonial New York. Spanning the period of time which covers the recorded existence of the African Burial Ground (from 1712 to 1792), the mural also includes historical imagery of Dutch and British colonial rule, the slave trade in New York, the American revolution, the Abolitionist movement and the emancipation of the slaves in New York in 1827.
My background as a printmaker led me to develop a graphic approach to this historical theme. The narrative of the mural is presented as a series of overlapping images which have been arranged to suggest the process of archeology-of digging through layers of historical fragments to reveal a previously untold stroy about a period of time. Similar to the archeological process of discovering artifacts and the painstaking sifting through information as it is uncovered, there is not chronology of events presented in this narrative. A 'time line' has been replaced with a layered reading of events which more closely resembles the actual way in which we learn about the past. The significance of the site lies in the unveiling of hidden history that will have a tremendous impact on our understanding of the present.
The main image in the mural is that of a mountain, flanked by two pillars. The mountain as a symbol of land appears as a sacred site and palce of spiritual truth; a symbol present in many cultures and religions. The inspiration for that image of a mountain came from several sources, among them a quote from an essay by Langston Hughes--"We must build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of th emountain, free within ourselves" and a well known quote from Martin Luther King's speech I Have A Dream, "Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York...from every mountainside let freedom ring". The Chinese name for American, Gum Saan, which translates as Gold Mountain, also provided a personal connection to this image for me. The pillars through which you view the mountain represent the past and present and echo the coulmns in the rotunda through which you can view the mural from the Duane Street entrance.
The image of the mountain rising from the water refers to the history of New York as a thriving harbor and port of entry--as well as one of the major centers of the British slave trade in America. The Middle Passage and the watery holocaust of the Atlantic Ocean is represented in the pillar on the mural's right. The pillar on the left contains a skyline of New York. Below this skyline, a foundation of bricks represents the physical foundation that the city's wealth was built upon. These bricks contain the names of the first eleven Africans brought to America through the Dutch slave trade. At the center section of the mural is a reproduction of an 18th century map of the Negroes Buriel Ground, which has been retitled the African Burial Ground. Above the map, the simple artifacts unearthed at the burial site--buttons, coins, shroud pins and beads--become a tangible connection to the past; and the talismans for a renewed vision of the future.
The history of the African Burial Ground is a history that enriches all of us. As a shared history of New York, it will bring together all the diverse communities who live here. Working on this mural has been a truly rewarding experience and I am honored to have had the opportunity to create a work of art that memorializes this important landmark.
