Wednesday, August 7, 2019

"We Already Have What We Need"


This is one exhibit called "Remote Viewing" in a large exhibition called "We Already Have What We Need."  It is a video, and here is what those of us watching saw.  There is this schoolhouse, with a green background behind it.  While we were watching it, a giant excavator comes from behind the schoolhouse, and starts digging a large hole in front of the school.  When the hole is done, the excavator disappears off screen.  Then a mother and child enter from the left.  Then the excavator comes back into the picture, and moves behind the schoolhouse. It then starts pushing the schoolhouse in to the hole that it dug!  The entire building falls into the hole and disappears!  The excavator then fills the hole back up.  The video takes 14 minutes, and is riveting to watch, not knowing what is going to happen.  I didn't understand what was going on until just now.  I read the printed 12 page booklet about the exhibition. Get this:  This was inspired by a true account of a white town burying it's black schoolhouse!  This video "records the physical reenactment of this violent suppression of history."  Wow!  How much more powerful what I saw becomes when you know the story behind it!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely shocking! Incredible that a town would actually bury a schoolhouse just because it was for blacks. There are no words. betsey