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CONCEPTUAL PROCESS

A friend was doing a study on lynching for an English assignment in high school. I didn’t think much of it then and I don’t remember a lot of it either but I was sure I wanted to look into it myself. I love artists such as Goya, Durer, Gittoes and the likes of them; interestingly the ways in which they interpreted and expressed sinister, shameful yet somehow intimate events. So it was quite natural for me to have a liking for more loaded and intense topics such as this. It didn’t take much and I soon found myself neck-deep in information, pictures, documentations and events surrounding lynching and its history. Frolicking around, I came across “Without Sanctuary” by Barbara Lewis, a text which contained some very deep and graphical material particularly involving the treatment of 19th 20th century black Americans. Flicking through the text, an image really stuck with me and astonished me as to how degraded and abused; not only, were these individuals but also black America as a collective individual. The image depicts a lynched body post-death being degraded and abused, as onlookers graffiti the victim’s body with the characteristics of a clown; in reference to, the then popular, minstrelsy show.  

What I want to address is the necessity of all the events that had occurred during that time. Why black Americans? They too are humans. We share the same blood; we share the same bounty which we were blessed, yet somehow, still, an outcast, and an inferior. 

Without Sanctuary Plate1 Courtesy of the Allen/Littlefield Collection circa1900

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early research

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19th 20th Century Southern America seemed to be recurring in my research. And somehow most, if not all components of American history during this time had something to do with, or contributed, to the treatment of black Americans. Here's three of which can be considered as some of America's most shameful history.

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Willie Lynch (1712) 'The Making of a Slave'

"Gentlemen. I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies, where I have experimented with some of the newest and still the oldest methods for control of slaves. Ancient Rome's would envy us if my program is implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we Cherish, I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of wood as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers, you are here using the tree and the rope on occasions. I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree, a couple miles back. You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit. You suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed.

Gentlemen, you know what your problems are; I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I have a full proof method for controlling your black slaves. I guarantee every one of you that if installed correctly It will control the slaves for at least 300 hundreds years. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it. I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves; and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences and think about them. On top of my list is "AGE" but it's there only because it starts with an "A." The second is "COLOR" or shade, there is Intelligence, size, sex, sizes of plantations, status on plantations, Attitude of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, course hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you a outline of action, but before that, I shall assure you that Distrust is stronger than trust and envy stronger than adulation, respect or admiration. The Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self refueling and self generating for Hundreds of years, maybe Thousands. Don't forget you must pitch the OLD black Male vs. the Young black Male, and the Young black Male against the OLD black male. You must use the Darl skin slaves vs. the LIGHT skin slaves, and the Light skin slaves vs. the Dark skin slaves. You must use the Female vs. the Male. And the Male vs. the Female. You must also have you white servants and over- seers distrust all Blacks. But it is Necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us. They must love, respect and trust only us. Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful. Thank you gentlemen."

http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/willie-lynch-making-slave

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"This speech was delivered by Willie Lynch on the bank of the James River in the colony of Virginia in 1712. Lynch was a British slave owner in the West Indies. He was invited to the colony of Virginia in 1712 to teach his methods to slave owners there. The term "lynching" is derived from his last name."

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"The Murder of Emmett Till"

maybe something to consider watching

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More traditionally, a map is expected to be – as Google dictionary would state – “a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features, cities, roads, etc.” or otherwise more abstract – “a maplike delineation, representation, or reflection of anything” (Dictionary.com). Here we ask, what is a conceptual map? As given “a map that engages the ideas of what a map is and what a map could be”. Does mapping have to be limited or restricted to just “diagrammatic representations” or can they have more intangible, elusive characteristics? What is the concept of mapping and what does it mean to map something; or rather, what do we achieve?

Consider artists such as Rosalie Gascoigne who discovers and embraces her adopted environment through, what can be considered, mapping. Generally, we would expect that through mapping we would be ultimately guided to a possibly outcome, that it would act as a catalyst for ideas and elaboration to be born. Originally from New Zealand, Gascoigne moved to Australia with her young family and was somewhat quickly thrust into a domesticated life. Suddenly left with only the air and landscape, Gascoigne scavenged social surroundings and later gave her viewers a scope into her response to the environment – the artist’s map of her surrounding environment.

With considerations to Gascoigne and her works or her practices we can go further and question how it does what it does and also what are the benefits of it. As already mentioned maps can be considered as any form of representation of any given thing or action; conventionally a sense of direction and of meaning or goal, or more conceptual and contemporary to give a new perspective/meaning contradictory and challenging to what we already know. In such approach we are then challenged and evoked to see or imagine what is and what could be of the act.

Lynching was a common 19th 20th century South American practice and was responsible for many lives. The name, place and date of death, and their alleged crimes can be seen as a map of the act of lynching and its history; a map of kind of people who were killed, where they came from and why it had occurred.

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Eva Hesse and her materials