Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World (2000)

ISSN: 1525-447X

COMMEMORATING THE AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND IN NEW YORK CITY:
SPIRITUALITY OF SPACE IN CONTEMPORARY ART WORKS

Andrea Frohne

1Several art projects have been commissioned to commemorate the New York City African Burial Ground that was uncovered in 1991 in lower Manhattan just off Broadway due to construction of a government office building. The art works have become visual representations for the African Burial Ground as well as of an African and African descendant presence that were once ignored and erased in colonial New York. Through an exploration of selected art works, I focus on central cultural, political, and spiritual issues defining and deriving from African American and African based discourses in particular. Dominant concerns within these discourses include control of the Burial Ground site and representation of it, recognition of ancestors, and violation of sacred space. As I engage these issues embedded within contemporary commemorations, notions of spirituality become central, particularly as any burial ground is naturally considered sanctified space. Can the physical site be reclaimed as sacred with the domineering presence of a skyscraper office building? Does the commemorative artwork generate spirituality; does it honor the ancestors buried there?

Colonial and Contemporary History of the African Burial Ground

The New York City African Burial Ground was actively used by enslaved and freed Africans and people of African descent from approximately 1712 until 1790. The cemetery covered five to six acres, in which between 10,000 and 20,000 people were buried, with bodies three layers deep in places. The 1991 unearthing of the Burial Ground has altered historical misconceptions, such as the mistaken belief that virtually no slave trade existed in the north. Few realized that during most of the eighteenth-century, New York City held the largest number of enslaved blacks outside of South Carolina.2 In 1790 for instance, slaves were owned by about 40% of the white households around New York City, with blacks comprising nearly one-quarter of the urban population.3

In the late seventeenth and entire eighteenth-century, the African Burial Ground was located on the periphery of the town so that funerals were performed beyond the scrutiny and surveillance of Europeans. It was Trinity Church who perhaps prompted use of the site, although it may have been in use prior to the Church's ordering in October 1697, "...that after the expiration of four weeks from the date here of no Negroes be buried within the bounds and limits of the church yard of Trinity Church."4 David Valentine documented one of the only descriptions of the site in 1847:

Beyond the commons [now City Hall] lay what in the earliest settlement of the town had been appropriated as a burial place for the Negroes, slaves and free. It was a desolate, unappropriated spot...Many of them were native Africans, imported hither in slave ships, and retaining their native superstitions and burial customs, among which was that of burying by night, with various mummeries and outcries... 5

Although biased, this quote nonetheless reveals that the cemetery was indeed a space for gathering, practicing spirituality, and remembering homelands. Archaeological excavation forced by construction of the government office building in the 1990s reveals that the majority of the interred bodies faced east, were wrapped in white shrouds and pinned with copper pins, and placed in wooden coffins without any names. Some were buried with copper coins placed over the eyes or hands, and shells were included in other coffins. A piece of coral, quartz crystal, and a silver bob were recovered. One older woman wore a belt of beads with a few cowrie shells around her waist. Several persons' teeth were filed in various African ethnic styles. Close to forty-five percent of the burials were children under the age of twelve, and some of the peoples' deaths were a result of being overworked.6

At the close of the eighteenth-century, the Burial Ground became valuable land as Manhattan expanded northward. It became de facto property of the Common Land of the City of New York and in 1790, Chambers Street was laid. By the end of the twentieth century, the forgotten cemetery was situated beneath the heart of the governmental district of downtown New York City among Federal Plaza, the Supreme Court, and City Hall. Suddenly, a sacred space was erased.

The site would be regained and reclaimed two centuries later, but as a contested terrain. Today, the area between Duane and Reade Streets reveals the remains of once oppressed and marginalized people who are now located in the crux of contemporary, mainstream New York City [figure 1]. General Services Administration (GSA) purchased two plots of land from New York City for $104 million dollars for the purpose of constructing a federal office building at 290 Broadway as well as a federal courthouse at Foley Square. Although the necessary salvage archaeology was performed by a firm named Historic Conservation and Interpretation (HCI) and the Burial Ground located, purchase and construction commenced without alternative strategies if skeletons were indeed unearthed. GSA presumed the site already disinhumed by urban development.

Before GSA commenced construction of the $276 million, thirty-four story office building, they again hired HCI to check for the possibility of undisturbed burials. Intact burials were in fact located during the summer of 1991. Not only was construction concurrent with excavation, but GSA's inexperienced archaeological teams worked speedily and sloppily to excavate several hundred skeletons and artifacts in order to prevent loss of time and money for the office building construction. Major errors included demolition of several burials due to a digging accident and damage to about twenty burials when concrete was poured on them. The large volume of bones and artifacts stored at Lehman College in the Bronx were wrapped in newspaper and left in cardboard boxes for mold to form until the city's Metropolitan Forensic Anthropology Team (MFAT) hired by GSA could clean and study the remains. The public protested vehemently against disrespectful treatment and against GSA's reluctance to recognize or commemorate the sacred site that it had disturbed. Public dissatisfaction escalated to outrage as Euro-Americans again controlled the fate of African and African American ancestors. Members of the government also fought GSA and it was Illinois Representative Gus Savage who held a hearing in July 1992, threatening to suspend future funding for GSA projects. Finally, excavation was halted and the proposed pavilion plans that would adjoin the tower were abandoned. The experienced John Milner Associates replaced HCI and Dr. Michael Blakey was hired as scientific director of the skeletal remains to be based at Howard University in Washington D.C.

After community activism and President Bush's eventual and forced intervention, three million dollars was appropriated for memorialization. As plans formulated, people wrestled with questions: Was this a secular office building, or sacred space [figure 2]? How could the Burial Ground be reclaimed and represented, how could its historical erasure be transformed to contemporary prominence?

GSA first commissioned three art works through its Art-in-Architecture program for the interior of the 290 Broadway office building in 1992.7 Generally, a panel comprised of local art professionals and the community recommends a short list of artists from their registry to GSA.8 Clyde Lynds created a relief for the entrance of the building [figure 3], Roger Brown composed a mosaic for the interior [figure 4], and Houston Conwill, Joseph De Pace, and Estella Majozo Conwill constructed a cosmogram for the floor of the lobby. Due to pressure from concerned citizens, it was decided that a second group of three artists be selected and commissioned in 1995 in which there would be a stronger public voice for selecting artists and art works to commemorate the Burial Ground. Members of the Federal Steering Committee, a group formed under former Mayor Dinkins who had made recommendations to GSA concerning the African Burial Ground, comprised part of the panel that selected the final short list of artists for the second group. Melvin Edwards would design a gate, Tomie Arai created a mural, and Barbara Chase Riboud a sculpture entitled Africa Rising [figure 5] all for the lobby of the building. Thus far, GSA has commissioned eight artists who endeavor to memorialize the site through a remembering or celebrating of people of African descent who have been forcibly written and painted out of history. Additionally, Lorenzo Pace has been commissioned by the Parks Department (again as a result of public pressure) to design a monumental sculpture/fountain for Foley Square one block northeast of the 290 Broadway office building [figure 6].

Spirituality of Space in the Commemorations

In this article, I focus upon Houston Conwill, Joseph De Pace and Estella Conwill Majozo's collaboration entitled The New Ring Shout and Tomie Arai's monumental silkscreen called Renewal. The artists have researched and engaged discourses espoused by the African descendant community and successfully integrated them into their artistic commemorations. In particular, the artists incorporate notions of spirituality in the art works. The history and character of the Burial Ground itself is founded upon spirituality: from the culturally diverse, early Africans who held night long funerals in which they negotiated and reinvented traditions that honored the departed—to the contemporary libations and offerings left for ancestors during protests, vigils, and ceremonies. Throughout 1990s demonstrations, meetings, and interviews by the media, emphasis has been placed on honoring and respecting ancestors. Additionally, Project Executive for memorialization, Peggy King Jorde, has urged the public to reclaim the secular building as a sacred site and establish it as a living memorial.9

I uphold that the art works, which can be defined not only by the physical, but also in a metaphysical sense, become spiritual spaces created in homage to ancestors of the past and their descendants today. While spirituality within art is not a new phenomenon, attention and treatment of it in academic disciplines has typically been eclipsed by intellectual and empirical analyses. Evident in both The New Ring Shout and Renewal, spirituality of space can be understood as a personal or collective interaction, recognition, or reference to a spiritual entity or system in a space. I select the word "spiritual" to impress that a space may be imbued with spirits, and to emphasize recognition or interaction between spirits, between those with bodies and those without. Rather than let the notion of spirituality stand alone, I also include space in this theory. The commemorative, which takes up space, may be spiritually engaged or defined.

I offer the word "spirituality" rather than "religion" because I do not want to limit the concept to organized religion or religion as institution. The notion of spirituality covers a broad spectrum that allows for multifarious practices, including personal ones. I advocate an inclusive spirituality that embraces the personal and any and all positive spiritual entities and forces so that personal, spontaneous, and organized practices may be included. However, a person does not have to personally practice or believe in spirituality in order to explore the spirituality of arts, spaces, performances, etc. This discourse of spirituality can supply a way of knowing, as well as understanding, of erased histories, forgotten ancestors, cultural practices, and regained identities. A variety of people's cultures, identities, spirits, and cosmological systems now might be considered. This exploration of spirituality motivates a construction of inclusive, controversial histories as well as forgotten, hidden spiritual interactions.

Such a performing and remembering of spirituality is critical for the artists as well as the public involved in celebration and education of the African Burial Ground. Visitors, tourists, interested citizens, the descendant community, and researchers have reiterated the importance of honoring ancestors through spiritual engagement of the site. During excavations and demonstrations, people poured libations to the spirit world. Organized events connected to the Burial Ground have also centered around communicating with ancestors. For instance, leaders of site tours at 290 Broadway have offered cards to visitors for writing messages to the departed [figure 7]. The cards will be reburied with the remains in the international reinterment ceremony scheduled for 2001.

The spirituality of the art works is contextualized in a particular way that accords with the metaphysics of some African societies. The artists recognize buried ancestors' origins and metaphysical systems in their own projects that include Kongo people of Zaire and Angola, Yoruba of Nigeria, Bamana and Dogon of Mali, and African Americans of the United States. Furthermore, African Americans in New York City, as well as Africans and Afro- Caribbeans, who are the majority of people honoring and fighting for the site, are of African descent. People today who are engaging the site may have roots in these areas, even though they may not know it, or may be descendants of people from the African Burial Ground. Others may carry African understandings of space and spirituality with them in practice or memory, and may not necessarily be of African descent. Finally, biological research on twenty- nine skeletons conducted by Dr. Michael Blakey at Howard University has revealed that the matrilineal line of the deceased included cultures of the Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulbe, and Tuaregs in Niger, as well as people from Senegal and Benin.10 Also, skeletal comparisons include Asante of Ghana in this group. Thus, we cannot necessarily consider the site through Christian or Western philosophies. While space is largely considered three dimensional and physical by Western ideology, many Africans (as well as other indigenous peoples) possess an understanding of time and space as multi-dimensional; as an expansion into other realms of space, time, knowledge, and being. In African societies including Dogon, Kongo, and Yoruba, realms of the living, dead, and spiritual interact; none is external to physical life, but an aspect of it. An example of this metaphysical understanding is evident on a coffin lid found in the African Burial Ground. It bears the Akan ideographic symbol called a sankofa that still exists in Ghana today. The Ghanaian proverb advises, "look to the past to inform the future". It incorporates the ancestors and the yet to be born while it speaks to those in the present. We can therefore consider the presence of time in the contemporary memorials through a spiritual sense; it is collapsed, interpenetrating different spaces and places, as far away as the Diaspora.

Memory is another aspect of time that is a quintessential component of spirituality of space. The commemorations are a remembering for collective viewing presented through intuition, knowledge, personal creativity, and recollection of the past. The word "commemoration" itself derives from the same Latin root as "memory", and literally means an intensified recalling or reminding. "Memorial" also derives from "memory", so that the notion of memory is inscribed within the very commissions given to the artists. Okediji's use of anamnesia, or remembering that includes past lives, is helpful here. He defines the strategy of anamnestic art as the "use of the past to subvert the present to gain the future."11 In his discussion of three African American artists, he writes,

Anamnesia allows the artists not only to cognize America, but also to recognize Africa and centrally (re)locate themselves and their (re)constructions in the pluralism of American art history...Because it is a construction of reality based on recollection— whatever could be snatched from the locked storehouse of memory—anamnesia is also a fictional form, fashioned on the artists' fabrication of a past engaged with nostalgia. (284)

In the case of the Burial Ground, artists of varying heritage crossed cultures to access memories of the African experience. The process was not necessarily innate, but was performed by attaining knowledge through extensive interviews and research. A reconstruction or representation of a never attainable reality is not the purpose. The memory process in spirituality of space is anamnestic and contemporary. Although the artists explore personal and collective memories from the past, they must also consider present and future engagement, acknowledgment, and identification with the commemoration.

The New Ring Shout and Renewal

Conwill, De Pace, and Conwill Majozo designed The New Ring Shout, a forty- foot handmade cosmogram of terrazzo and polished brass laid into the floor of the central rotunda in 290 Broadway. The piece occupies the most central portion of the lobby in the office building. Employees and visitors cross over it as they walk to the elevators to enter offices and again to exit the building for breaks and lunch. The team explains in its design proposal for the Ring Shout that, "We consider the rotunda space at the building's center as the most appropriate site. Its circular 'sacred space' with its massive columns and dramatic lighting evokes a heightened sense of a spiritual center in keeping with the site's great importance."12 Architect De Pace affirms the team's endeavor to transform the secular space of an office building into a spiritual temple.

The title, The New Ring Shout, celebrates cultural continuity and transcultural reinvention, particularly in its reference to the oldest African American performance surviving in North America. Still occurring today in varying forms, the performance consists of call and response singing of "Shout" songs, polyrhythmic stick beating, clapping, and movement in a circle. The team explains that their creation becomes a "new world cosmogram". Both the ring shout of the United States and the African Burial Ground's New Ring Shout incorporate memories, histories, and spiritualities that are selectively or forcibly retained, reinvented, or erased.

Houston Conwill was inspired by Kongo spiritual understandings evident in Africa and the Diaspora for his design of the piece [figure 8]. The New Ring Shout expresses a Kongo philosophy that the worlds of the living and dead interconnect. In the Kongo cosmogram, the horizontal axis is the boundary between the living on the top half, and the dead below who dwell in the realm of water. The vertical axis of The New Ring Shout that connects the two realms forms a crossroads so significant to many African cultures; a space of passage, communication, and intersection between worlds. In the Ring Shout, the watery realm of the dead occupies the blue outer edge in which there are quotes of prominent African American ancestors, alternating between male and female, translated into fourteen international languages. Here, Conwill visually and symbolically represents the Kongo based understanding that the dead dwell in the water. The inner white ring of the Ring Shout names twenty-four African nations who suffered in the slave trade. The vertical axis does not cross these two outer rings as does the horizontal, but rather passes beneath them to create a multilayer effect. The arrow on this axis connects the ring of marbled enslaved nations to similarly marbled blocks on the outside of the cosmogram by passing under the blue ancestor section, thus illustrating connections between native Africans and people of African descent who walk on the floor today. On the other hand, the horizontal axis shoots through the African nations to the circle of the dead and out into the lobby. Here the continuity among the living and dead parallels the multiple dimensions and relationships between them and between past, present, and future. The cosmogram visually represents circular cycles of birth, life, death, and rebirth.

While the two axes create the crossroads, another trajectory composed of a song line spirals through the rings to create its own center. For the Kongo, the continuous cycle of the sun traveling its four moments mimics the inward spiral of a seashell. Thus, Conwill has incorporated yet another manifestation of the cosmogram into the composition. The spiral's journey ends at the African Burial Ground. The final destination maps the very point where viewers and employees of GSA walk, just underneath the parking garage under their feet. The mapping is simultaneously a visual representation as well as a literal marking of ancestors of New York City. The artists placed the symbol of a tree here to characterize growth and rebirth. Similarly, Kongo graves are often positioned next to trees, which then become sacred sites. Moreover, the African Burial Ground was in an undeveloped area, possibly near trees and certainly on the edge of a body of water named Collect Pond. Thus, the generations and spaces visualized here transcend the physical to connect us to other locations, times, and spiritual realms.

The horizontal and vertical axes are marked by four critical points, or disks at the end of each axis. The spiral song line also traverses the critical points. These four moments of the sun, also called singing the points by Kongo people, mark contact between the spiritual world and this one. Spiritual and ancestral power is invoked through song and through the descent of a spirit's power on a ritually designated point.

The four circles are comprised of twelve bodies of water from around the world divided into groups of three. Labeled centers of Vision, Grace, Balance, and Speech, each disk contains an ideographic symbol that the team invented, thus leaving imagery open to interpretation. Vision is achieved by Acts of Wisdom. Three black dots form a triangle to suggest the third eye, an energy center in our foreheads that provides insight and intuition. Acts of Justice bring about Balance. Here, a downward turning semicircle suggests a scale. Acts of Hope invoke Grace, which is symbolized by a small spiral to outline a fetus. Finally, Acts of Temperance enable speech. A wavy line connotes the tongue of communication. These qualities or ideals are desperately needed in our era of globalization.

The global context of the work is intensified by the twelve bodies of water referencing the sites near which people dwell or routes by which they travel.13 The team writes that The New Ring Shout is yet another incarnation that "presents a rechoreographing of history tracing a cultural pilgrimage and contemplative metaphorical journey of transformation along the twelve global water sites that mark the migration of the many cultures and peoples to New York City."14 Native Americans who lived there, and visitors, immigrants, and enslaved people arriving in New York City have entered through New York Bay at the center of the cosmogram. The song line traces the spiral of life that maps interfaces of physical and spiritual realms we encounter during critical points or passages in our lives. These climactic points in life, or moments of the sun, are part of both a global and local cosmological history. The four disks are on the path of the spiral journeying inwards to the local point at the African Burial Ground, as well as the vertical and horizontal axes projecting outwards on a global level.

The New Ring Shout's lighting effects are based on Kongo metaphysics, thereby augmenting the spiritual nature of the piece. For instance, lights in the rotunda hang directly above The New Ring Shout's four critical points that map a transcendence of the physical into the spiritual. By actualizing a separate space, the lighting extends the cosmogram into yet another dimension. Light in Kongo based metaphysics refers to the spirit world, which can be initiated by mirrors and aluminum that create shimmering, flashing reflections. The team's use of polished brass directly involves Kongo traditions of shininess that are flashes of spirits. The Burial Ground's Office of Public Education and Interpretation (OPEI) tour leader brings this out by explaining to tour groups that first we must look down to view the Ring Shout. That motion in itself is an act of reverence and is in the direction of the dead who were buried below the building. The shining brass creates reflections while we ourselves experience personal reflection.15

The poem by Conwill Majozo that accompanies the art invokes both personal and polycultural spiritualities. It calls for an intermingling of the viewer on the physical cosmogram with the intangible space of the spirit world. In this excerpt, Conwill Majozo writes:

Dance upon the amulet—
amulet of stone
Dance upon the amulet—
hallowed place of human bone—
comfort the ancestors' spirits—
feel the rising in your own.
Here is a mandala of memory—
Here is Dogon drum—
Medicine wheel
of the crossroads—
underbelly of the hum—
the songline spirals inward
the soul speaks, come!...
People of the twelve waters—
Reflection of the Giver—
Recognize the parted self
in the ancient river—
Recognize the parted self
Dance and deliver!...

The New Ring Shout is not exclusively for an African American audience, but is designed to engage all people. For instance, the crossroads theme can also be interpreted as the sign of the Christian cross.16 Or among the Yoruba and the Diaspora, the crossroads is the domain of the trickster orisha (deity) named Eshu where important decisions might be faced. In fact, De Pace prefers the word "viewer" or "audience" to that of "participant."17 When people walk the circles, talk about the work to others, bring something to it, or leave with something new; then the Ring Shout has been engaged and extended. It expands metaphysically, visually, geographically, and temporally through the arrow stretching outwards. Strategic sites in New York City are selected to bring humans and nations together, such as Shea Stadium, Weeksville, and the United Nations, as well as the Tibetan Museum for recognizing political issues. In all, there are fourteen of these "spiritual signposts" demarcated by miniature cosmograms. Additionally, two sets of "E"s are drawn back to back, one white and one black to visualize the coming together of people.18 If the curved E is turned on its back, it becomes a praise figure with a small head and raised arms. This celebration is accented by the last line of the songline, "Hoping that someday both black and white will stand up by each other and unite".

In keeping with the multicultural aspect of the Ring Shout, there are in fact three cosmologies subtly intertwined.19 First there is the notion of the crossroads and Kongo based cosmogram already discussed. The team notes that it designates a sacred place and draws power "from the four cardinal directions to a center."20 Secondly, the children's hopscotch diagram was once a dance site for directing players from hell to heaven. Thirdly, the piece is based on the medieval labyrinth laid into the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France. Chartres was a pilgrimage site where people undertook the metaphoric journey of the maze, perhaps through hell to heaven or through the Holy Land to Heaven or Jerusalem, that included dance at times. Before Christianity was introduced, the maze was an ancient Druidic point of power and dance.

The New Ring Shout is a rendering of the cosmos that offers multiple cultures, histories, and spiritualities on a global scale. These powerful, yet intangible issues and dimensions are successfully laid over a cartographic map of New York. The three cosmologies all carry the notion of expansion or subversion: the overlaying of Christianity and the Diaspora tell of struggles, conflicts, differences, coming together, and remembering and losing identity and spiritual practice. However, basic, fundamental aspects are retained and reinvented. Although some may view the Ring Shout as overly optimistic, the team decided to create a positive, celebratory piece that focused on triumph of adversity.

Not only have artists engaged these spiritualities, the public is also practicing or being taught sensibilities that are African based. The New Ring Shout was so engaged during a dedication of the 290 Broadway art works at a ceremony held this October 1998. The leader named Dorothy Desir-Davis established The New Ring Shout as a communal and spiritual space by pouring a libation on the floor in the center of the cosmogram as the public stood around the perimeter. She called out an invitation and blessings to guests, several artists in attendance, ancestors represented within the cosmogram, and those who laid beneath the piece to participate in the dedication [figure 9]. The priestess called upon the trickster loa (deity) Papa Legba who resides at the crossroads and who opens doors for new and reclaimed histories, for artists memorializing the African Burial Ground, and for a priestess's surprise invitation to a GSA event. While GSA may have included Desir-Davis, who comes from Haiti, as a symbol of the African Diaspora, her very presence and engagement of the spiritual world "once again subverted the whole [GSA] process" in the typically ambiguous manner of Papa Legba.21

Additionally, people who attend site tours of the artwork and plot of land outside the building given by the outreach office under GSA learn about and engage the spiritual space. When the leader invites the group to stand around the Ring Shout, we actively interpret and invoke Kongo cosmology and African metaphysics in general by looking back to the past, reaching out across geographic and spiritual space, and finally locating ourselves in the present. The tour group first honors African American leaders, then steps into the Ring Shout onto the 24 nations to remember nations traumatized by the slave trade, and then travels the spiraling journey of life that includes death and rebirth. The leader asks for a volunteer to travel the spiral, which stops at the point marked African Burial Ground. The volunteer is at times surprised that the cosmogram includes the here and now, locating her or him at the Burial Ground itself.

Artist Tomie Arai brings viewers to the Burial Ground through a collage of spatial and temporal dimensions to render a second space of spirituality. She has created a 7.5 by 38-foot silkscreen entitled Renewal that hangs in the lobby of the office building [figure 10]. Through a collage of historic and contemporary images layered below and on top of one another, Renewal revives memories and histories of the African Burial Ground from numerous perspectives. For instance, Arai includes the Maershalk Plan of 1755. This was one of the few European visual representations of colonial New York that acknowledged the existence of the Burial Ground. In the left hand pillar is a rare colonial image, in which an African presence is acknowledged, of skilled African Americans working in the harbor. Throughout the silkscreen are images of Native Americans and wampum that are part of the history of early Africans in New York.

In each of the pillars that flanks the triangular composition, Arai depicts the bases of the institution of slavery. The right pillar illustrates scenes of the middle passage. The left side contains bricks inscribed with the names of the first eleven male Africans brought to New Amsterdam in 1626 [figure 11]. They include Anthony Portuguese, Simon Congo, Big Manuel, Peter Santomee, Manuel de Gerrit de Reus, and Paulo Angola. Arai positions these early African Americans as the foundation of modern Manhattan that rests above them because they were literally a foundation of it.

The entire shape of Renewal resembles a mountain. Arai has suggested this because the Chinese words Gum Saan translate into Gold Mountain, a phrase that means America. A place that is considered the land of golden opportunity is ironically the land of exploitation. As an Asian American, Arai explores a personal and collective memory of migration and exploitation. Arai also notes that the mountain "is a common symbol in many cultures for a sacred site. It is spiritual."22

Arai reiterated that the site of her art is a profoundly spiritual space. She performed extensive interviews to research and represent notions of spirituality and history from an African-based, African American perspective.23 People repeatedly conveyed to her the importance of respecting and retaining connections to ancestors. The artist realizes that in this spiritual space at the African Burial Ground, people are able to connect to an African past that is part of their identity.24 She places an Ifa divination tray at the apex of the mountain, a spiritual location in itself that has been used historically to communicate with the other world. Yoruba people in Nigeria and the Diaspora use this tray for divination to access knowledge, advice, and healing. Instead of the traditional kola nuts that are thrown for a reading, Arai places funerary objects from the African Burial Ground in the center. These include copper pins, coins, beads, shells, and buttons. Once again, times of past, present, and future are visually represented to create spirituality of space.

Such interwoven notions of time define the sankofa tacked onto one coffin excavated from the African Burial Ground. Arai sought to capture the essence and whole meaning of the sankofa in Renewal.25 The symbol (which means look to the past to inform the future) is depicted in the left pillar of the silkscreen. The Burial Ground of the past has resurfaced to tell us about early African Americans and to guide people in the future as they wrestle with issues of racism, slavery, and history. Arai's Ifa tray asserts a continuity of African concepts in the Diaspora while it simultaneously reminds us of particular African roots. The funerary objects of the past illuminate the present, providing the potential to lead to a positive future. As viewers, we also travel across times, geographic spaces, and traverse physical boundaries into the spiritual realm.

The transparent images and red, green, gold, and black colors of the National Liberation Flag reveal synchronic and once suppressed histories. Colonial and contemporary images of the African and African Diaspora presence in New York are laid above, below, and through each other. Renewal does not relay a linear, chronological history or single narrative, but recalls and creates interpenetrating, multi-layered histories. Arai likens her imagery to the process of memory, which is selective and anachronistic.

The visual rendering of both The New Ring Shout and Renewal reflect an African-based conception of multidimensional space, time, and spirituality. Both works profess the significance of memory, and presence or reference to the spirit world to create a powerful and effective spirituality of space.

While the art works themselves are created as spaces of spirituality, how effectively can they be engaged and experienced beyond the special events already discussed? I spoke with a few of the hundreds of GSA workers who move through the lobby every day. A majority expressed frustration over the abstractness of the works and wished they were "simpler."26 They want to understand the works, some have read the brochures placed beside each work, but still find the works inaccessible. Others were hardly aware of the works and could not refer to any specific one. Quite a few others enjoy the aesthetics of the pieces and value them as memorials, but lack an in-depth understanding, and therefore interpretation of them. A few explained they do not have enough historical background about Africans in New York or about African American history to relate to the arts. However, many of the people I spoke with value The New Ring Shout on the lobby floor because they do understand it and relate to it. In general, a large gap exists between the purpose of the memorial projects and the public for whom (in part) the arts were installed. Perhaps the GSA employees do not belong to the public? Why are they overlooked and not informed of events related to the site and project?27 Perhaps the employees have been caught between OPEI who endeavors to reach New York City schools, churches, and communities beyond GSA, and GSA itself who has resisted the project.

The office building itself enforces restriction and control over engaging spiritual space at 290 Broadway. Visitors cannot readily walk into the lobby to view the memorials because, since the Oklahoma bombing, they first face metal detectors and security guards. Photographs are prohibited as the act ostensibly contributes to terrorism. The interior is inaccessible after hours. Erasure that was historically part of the African Burial Ground is also built into the arts that now memorialize it. In fact, De Pace maintains that the Ring Shout is not public art, although it was initially intended as such.28

A similar situation exists outside of the building. The fenced in preserved plot of land that is designated by a sign as a national historic site simultaneously excludes any body from that space [figure 12]. Words on two large white signs name this space the African Burial Ground. Rather than experiencing histories, cultures, or spirituality of space and what that means, viewers encounter text as interpretation of the space. Such a simplistic presentation may raise the question, what is excluded or concealed?

Personal experience of the exterior sacred space is prohibited. The area is encaged by a metal, locked fence with a sign stating, "No Trespassing. Violators will be Prosecuted." On the one hand, this space is protected from vandalism. But who is protecting whom and who comprises "vandals"? GSA still maintains control and surveillance of who and when people enter the space and it remains pristine and untainted by any individual presence. School children in June 1999 visited the site in order to learn about their ancestors and about honoring the dead. The teacher invited the children to deposit fruits outside of the fence as an offering. By the next day, the fruits were cleared away. Why? African-based practices of honoring the dead may not be accepted because they are not understood, but also because there is a resistance to learn. In November of 1999 at an OPEI event, the proper combination was not available to enter the fenced plot of land. Visitors stood outside to perform a beautiful "Giving Thanks Tribute" as they sang and lit candles in memory of the dead [figure 13]. In the face of restriction and limitation, the groups of people were able to manifest a spirituality of space to honor those who had come before them.

There are bitter ironies and physical difficulties to face. Construction of a $276 million office building damaged and disturbed a sacred space that was once occupied by a marginalized group of society. One must consider that if the graves belonged to another group of people, such as Trinity Church, the site could have been treated differently.

In an attempt to counter these negative situations, Project Executive Peggy King Jorde has encouraged people to "reclaim the site as sacred" by organizing events and visiting frequently.29 To augment this, she has proposed to GSA a Performance Series for The New Ring Shout in which musicians perform on the Ring Shout while participants gather around the circle. The first series begins this February 2000 for Black History Month.

In conclusion, I argue for an incorporation of a discourse of spirituality within an academic context, and within visual culture in particular. Just as there are contexts of history, society, politics, form, gender, "race", and culture that define and impact visual culture, I propose that spirituality of space is another valid condition for study. My specific exploration of spirituality of space in contemporary commemorations of the African Burial Ground has elucidated issues involving African based metaphysics and memory as well as politics of power, racism, and erasure. The arts within the lobby begin to subvert a secular office building by challenging sanctified space of the dead. The art works and the public revive and reinvent cultural and historical memories through creating spiritual spaces that interconnect generations, geographic borders, and the spiritual realm at the African Burial Ground.

© Copyright 2000 Africa Resource Center

Citation Format

Frohne, Andrea. (2000). COMMEMORATING THE AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND IN NEW YORK CITY: SPIRITUALITY OF SPACE IN CONTEMPORARY ART WORKS. Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World: 1 , 1.

Table of Contents

** Table of Contents

0.1. Colonial and Contemporary History of…
0.2. Spirituality of Space in the Commemorations
0.3. the new Ring Shout and renewal