The Jefferson College African American Heritage Middle (JSAAHC), a Black-led public analysis nonprofit in Charlottesville, Virginia, is in search of artists to rework the melted stays of the town’s Robert E. Lee statue into a brand new public work. Earlier this month, the group opened the appliance for artists as a part of the second part of its Swords Into Plowshares initiative.
The undertaking follows years of local people petitioning efforts and litigation battles over the notorious Accomplice normal’s statue. The monument’s dismantlement was on the heart of the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, when James Alex Fields Jr. intentionally drove his automobile right into a crowd, killing civil rights activist Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others.
In 2021, the Charlottesville Metropolis Council unanimously authorised the Swords Into Plowshares proposal to soften down the statue and use the remnants to create a public paintings. The sculpture was melted down two years in the past into crimson bronze ingots.
In 2023, the longstanding Robert E. Lee statute in Charlottesville was melted all the way down to be made into a brand new paintings. (photograph by Eze Amos, courtesy Swords Into Plowshares on the Jefferson College African American Heritage Middle)
“At the heart of the Swords into Plowshares initiative is a community conversation guided by research, public education, and opportunities for reflection — situated in a place where our nation’s ideals of freedom were developed, despite being rooted in a lucrative system of enslavement whose lasting ramifications continue to shape society today,” JSAAHC Govt Director Andrea Douglas informed Hyperallergic.
Douglas cited Virginia’s historical past of getting one of many highest numbers of erected Accomplice memorials within the nation. In keeping with a 2019 information survey by the Southern Poverty Regulation Middle (SPLC), the state was residence to 110 Accomplice monuments, proper behind Georgia’s 114 statues; notably, the identical SPLC survey recorded that Virginia has additionally been a pacesetter in Accomplice monument and image elimination efforts, largely as a consequence of grassroots and neighborhood activism.
For the undertaking’s artist choice course of, a jury will select as much as 5 semi-finalists, who will likely be given $10,000 to develop design proposals for the brand new piece. Candidates are requested to add a resume demonstrating their skilled credentials, an announcement of curiosity briefly describing what drew them to the undertaking, and pictures and particulars of not too long ago accomplished work. There’s a $10 price for the appliance, which is able to shut at 11:59pm PT on April 25.
Purple bronze ingots composed from Charlottesville’s former Robert Lee accomplice monument, which was melted down in 2023 (photograph courtesy Swords Into Plowshares)
“Our goal is to establish a democratic process — one that stands in direct opposition to the legacy of white supremacy embodied in the former monuments that once connected the center of Charlottesville and the University of Virginia,” Douglas informed Hyperallergic.
The location will place the long run paintings in dialogue with the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers and the Katherine Foster memorial on the College of Virginia; the Contemplative Web site at Monticello; and the Memorial to the Enslaved deliberate for Montpelier; in addition to different monuments elsewhere in the USA and overseas.
“As members of our federal government divest from historical accountability and attempt to reshape our shared history, it is imperative that institutions like the JSAAHC continue initiatives such as Swords into Plowshares, whose success relies on artists to help us interrogate the continuity of our past, present, and future,” Douglas stated.