Nekisha Durrett Remembers Those Displaced by the Pentagon
The work features 903 ceramic teardrop vessels, one for each of the residents of Queen City who lost their homes to the construction of the U.S. defence headquarters.
Nekisha Durrett, Queen City (2023). 903 ceramic vessels in a brick and concrete tower. Courtesy the artist and For Freedoms.
Nekisha Durrett's sculpture Queen City will soon be revealed in Washington DC as part of a four-day programme promoting discourse and democracy by artist-led organisation For Freedoms.
Queen City was an African American community that had stood for 40 years in East Arlington. In 1941, the federal government used eminent domain to move residents out to make way for roads and infrastructure feeding into the newly built U.S. Department of Defence headquarters building, the iconic Pentagon.
'When Queen City was destroyed, so too was the potential of what this community could accomplish as a whole,' said Durret. 'This sculpture is a gesture toward bringing this community together again and making visible the splendour that is this community's legacy.'
Durrett's sculpture takes the form of a ten-metre-tall brick tower that peers over the surrounding trees and buildings in the new Metropolitan Park development. Altogether, 903 ceramic teardrops by 17 Black artists from across the US line the interior of the tower, one for each of the displaced residents.
Former Queen City resident William 'Bill' Vollin expressed his happiness that, 'not only is [the community] being memorialised, it also resurrects the memories of what was like a lost tribe of people.'
The sculpture will be revealed at an event today on 3 June, at Metropolitan park with Nekisha Durrett, William Vollin, and Arlington Arts.
For Freedoms is also holding the weekend exhibition Visionary Not Reactionary, at the Meridian Centre for Cultural Diplomacy, with works by Durrett as well as artists Hank Willis Thomas, Sheida Soleimani, Eric Gottesman, and Coby Kennedy.
Speaking to the organisation's mission, For Freedoms co-founder Eric Gottesman explained that 'this year, For Freedoms has been focused on art as a means for healing within a public and cultural sphere'. —[O]
