This
portfolio depicts the landscape and architecture of
historically segregated schools in northern states. At the
very beginning of W.E.B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk"
he describes an early school experience, "... I was
different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and
life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast
veil"
Using DuBois concept of the "veil," I employ digital
imaging processes to isolate the structures from the
surrounding environment. The images are edited using Adobe
Photoshop to represent the building in "normal" grayscale
tones and the rest of the scene is masked to create the
"veil" of separation between the world which was
constructed for the education of black children and the
rest of the social landscape.
The prints in this portfolio are made using pigment inkjet
using the Epson 7880 to produce images that are 13.3"x20"
on 20"x24" sheets of 100% rag paper
The current project is a survey of the places that were
connected to the system of racially segregated (broadly
defined to include Jim Crow imposed segregation, self
imposed segregated schools initiated by member of the black
community and de facto segregation) schools established in
the northern United States. My particular interest is in
the regions of the northern “free” states that bordered the
slave states (sometimes known as the Up-South, just over
the line to freedom) as regions of unique concentrations of
black settlements during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Schools for the Colored is the representation of
my effort to memorialize these sites.
Schools for the Colored
10 of 50 images in the portfolio (click image for full
preview)
