The last stop on my tour was Allensworth, CA. I am from Fresno, CA which is an hour away from Allensworth, and I had no clue Allensworth existed until I took a class called Blacks in the West where we learned about various all Black towns across the country. I made it a plan to visit some all Black towns. There was a missed opportunity that caused me to not be able to go to Oklahoma and visit the all Black towns there through a tour, but I was able to visit Allensworth. Though, Allensworth is no longer a functioning town and instead a national preserved park. It still has the buildings and informational history for folk who choose to visit to learn about what it was like to live in an all Black town like Allensworth.
This was on a wall of images in the office/waiting room. It reminded me of the work I made prior to this travel experience where I had a figure above a patterned background.
The people you'll see in the photos are some of my family. I was able to encourage some of my family members to visit Allensworth with me as an educational and family bonding time. The building behind them is the schoolhouse. We were unable to go inside because all the buildings were locked and are only opened for tour purposes (something we did not find out till we got there).
A lot of open space and houses with a lot of space in between one another. They also had barns and gardens behind them. There were also some lots that were empty but had signs up letting you know there was a building there but no longer up. For example, one of the grocery stores was longer physically there, but the space where it was, was noted by a sign with information.
We were lucky enough to see inside the church because there was a tour happening and the tour guide gladly let us go inside the church to see what it looks like. (SPOILER: it looks like a church). Though I was very enthralled by the glass stained window from the inside.
Various images of other buildings like the Barber shop and pictures through the window of what the inside looked like. I really liked the basket like patterns in the quilt on the bed, and the hardly visible ceramic pourer in a bowl? Possibly for hot water since the room appeared to be a bedroom. The last picture is my aunt and grandma on the patio of a house looking off into the open sky and land. They also performed an impromptu "olden days" anthem as they called it to tap into their roots. I forgot to save the video so I sadly can't share their humorous reenactment of what it would be like living in Allensworth.
The last picture is of the family members who came and I. Pictured are my aunt, cousin, mom, two younger sisters and grandmother. My mom, aunt and grandmother had been to Allensworth, but my cousin and two sisters did not know about it until I brought it up, so I am also happy I got to expose them to something new as I was also exposing myself to something new. Though this trip to Allensworth did not supply me with what I was hoping for, it did help me reconsider what approach I want for my work. Prior to this trip I wanted to create work that tapped into history as the narrative, but after visiting Allensworth and considering everything I saw in Richmond, DC and Philadelphia; I thought that my work should be more personal and about experiences I understand or ones that are closely related to experiences I have had. Basically I did not want my work's source material to be the past, but the present. And how to make my work feel more present and not feel "outdated", was the next question.
No comments:
Post a Comment