 Good evening and welcome. I'm Farah Jasmine Griffin, and I am chair of the African-American and African diaspora studies department here at Columbia University. And I will be moderating this evening's discussion about the Memorial to Enslave Laborers. I am thrilled and honored to be here, and I am looking forward to this evening's discussion. Before we get started, I'd like to take a few minutes to thank our co-sponsors. I think of them as our collaborators. It's a wonderful community of institutions and organizations that have come together to bring this event to you this evening. The Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, Columbia University School of the Arts, the Committee on Global Thought, Cornell Architecture Art Planning, the Department of African-American and African diaspora studies here at Columbia, the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery, which is housed at the Schomburg Institute, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Queens Museum, what a group. Tonight's program seems especially important at this moment in time in our history and the history of our nation, this very heated moment where discussions of monuments have come to the fore, giving us the opportunity to think about the question of what we choose to memorialize. I find this quotation by the President of the Mellon Foundation, Elizabeth Alexander, quite prescient for what we will be talking about. She says, how do we say who we are? How do we teach our history in public places? Our history in public places. Tonight's conversation explores the history, form and process behind the creation of the powerful new memorial to enslaved laborers at the University of Virginia. The grounds, designed by Thomas Jefferson and now recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were built and maintained by 4,000 enslaved men, women and children. The memorial features marks and the names of these individuals carved into granite. It was designed with input from their descendants and the Charlottesville community members, turning what the New York Times calls grief for a hidden past into a healing space. Tonight, as our speakers, we are very fortunate to have those people who comprise the creative team behind the memorial, all together, all with us in conversation. Among them, Greg Bleem, the principal of the Charlottesville-based firm Greg Bleem Landscape Architects, E. Franklin Dukes, Distinguished Institute Fellow at the Institute for Engagement and Negotiation at the University of Virginia, Eto Oteig-Tigbe, who's a visual artist and assistant professor of art at Brooklyn College, Diane Brown Towns, Project Manager of the Brown Towns Educational Productions, and also a Charlottesville community member. Mabel O. Wilson, my colleague, the Nancy and George Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, and the director of the Institute for Research and African American Studies, and J. Mijin Yoon, the Gail and Ira Drucker Dean of Cornell Architecture, Art and Planning, and principal of the architecture firm, Howler and Yoon. Please join me in welcoming them, and I'll turn this evening's panel over to Mabel Wilson. Good evening. I'm Mabel Wilson, and I just wanted to begin by saying I'm sitting on the unceded land of the Lenape peoples, and I ask you to join me at acknowledging the Native American communities where you are, their elders, both past and present, as well as future generation. Hi, I'm Mijin Yoon. Hello, everybody. I'm Frank Dukes, and joining you from Charlottesville and Albemarle County, and on the unceded land of the Monocan peoples. Hello, I'm Greg Bleehm. Hello, I'm Etto Tehtigbe. I'm calling in from Brooklyn, New York. Hello, I'm Diane Brown Towns, and I'm also joining you from Albemarle County, which was once Monocan Indian land. In a sobering reflection of how Black history is American history, James Baldwin made the following sobering observation. He said, quote, I think one of the stumbling blocks is that the nature of the Black experience in this country does indicate something about the total American history, which frightens Americans, end quote. To tell the story of the United States requires reckoning with hard truth, with those histories that have been silenced in the nation's archives, and in the public spaces of our shared landscape. Next, please. What are the stories to be told of the estimated 4,000 men, women, and children who built, worked, and lived at the University of Virginia from its founding in 1817 to the end of the Civil War that ended their enslavement. As you can see from this historical marker on University Avenue in Charlottesville, Virginia, just in front of UVA's iconic rotunda, the standard history is stated with no mention of slavery. Next, please. Silenced were the voices and contributions of the enslaved people who built many of our hallowed structures, built the entire country for that matter, which demonstrates how white supremacy is still embedded into many of our systems, including our built environment. The initial recognition of this hidden history was in the form of an expression of regret issued by the University of Virginia's Board of Visitors in 2007 that echoed the Virginia General Assembly's expression of regret that same year. Neither statement used the language of apology, which was proposed in the General Assembly, but rejected out of concern that it would imply some sort of liability and a need for repair or reparations. In the same time, the Board of Visitors authorized installation of a plaque that you see there in the floor of the walkway in front of the rotunda, co-equal with recognition that they gave to white craftsmen and builders who worked on the University. This plaque though had the unintended consequences of sparking student outrage. In the fall of 2007, I assigned students in my class for brand new students called Writing Unrightable Wrongs, an assignment. I asked them to find the marker that acknowledged slavery within UVA. All of the students undoubtedly had walked right over it or on it without noticing it. Students were dismayed at the limits of this recognition that it was underfoot, not only nearly hidden but trampled upon, that it barely mentioned the enslaved and ignored their role in the nearly 40 years after UVA opened, and that it so directly centered Jefferson. And so this outrage ended up really forming the base momentum for creating a proper memorial. That same year, 2007, a small group of us began developing what became UCARE, the University and Community Action for Racial Equity. UCARE involved community members and students, staff and faculty, using a framework of truth, understanding, repair, and relationship. We did this to tell the long hidden truths of our racialized history, to understand the impacts of those truths on the community and on so many ongoing racial disparities, to develop repairs both within UVA and the community, and then sustain an authentic relationship between the community and UVA. Ishraga Elta here, seen on the right, joined our first group of student interns. Ishraga was in that 2007 class that was dismayed by that marker, and she was determined that the marker would not remain the only recognition of the enslaved. In 2009, 2010, she, along with other UCARE interns, began hosting meetings with students, with staff, faculty and community members to develop support for a different memorial. Next. With Ishraga's leadership, the students formed an organization that was recognized by the student council as the memorial for enslaved laborers, known colloquially as MEL. This group then sponsored a design competition in 2011 to raise awareness and promote interest in building a more appropriate memorial. Next. This hidden history became even more tangible to the community when archaeologists discovered 70 unmarked graves behind the university's official cemetery. These unmarked graves are thought to be the graves of the quote unquote servants, the euphemism for the enslaved, that were referenced in reminiscences by a former student in the late 19th century. The image that you see is the last portion of a ceremony of memorialization that began in the community and that ended in the cemetery, recognizing those lives. Next. In that same year, then President Sullivan created the President's Commission on slavery in the university, with the charge to provide her with recommendations regarding the recognition and acknowledgement of the history of slavery and the University of Virginia. Next. In the subsequent years of its five year lifespan, the President's Commission undertook many actions, including the creation of a walking tour of sites related to enslavement. This tour, by the way, is now available online on the university's website, so it's on our official website. Next. In 2016, the President's Commission sponsored a symposium on the topic of memorialization that was very well attended by community and university leaders, including President Sullivan in the middle there with the glasses. The panel included Ishraga Elte here, the founding student member of Mel, come back about her fifth reunion, and a member of the Board of Visitors, Rusty Connor, the chair of the Building and Grounds Committee, who made a very visible leadership presence and expressed public support for the construction of a memorial, the first time that it happened with any leader. Next. When it opened in 1826, UVA's 10 pavilions housed faculty and family, its lawn rooms boarded 125 white male students, and the verdant swath of the terrace lawn, seen here, was crowned by the rotunda, the centerpiece of the ensemble that housed the library. In his plans for the Academical Village, Thomas Jefferson, signer of the Declaration of Independence, the second governor of Virginia, third president of the United States, planter and owner of 600 enslaved peoples over the course of his life, brought together an exclusive community and an environment he designed to be conducive, quote, to health, to study, to manners, morals, and order, end quote. Next, please. What recently remained silent in official historical narratives about the university's antebellum period from 1817 to 1865 was mention of the Academical Village's dependency on an equal number of roughly 150 at one time, enslaved men, women, and children, and we see a woman here taking care of a child at the end of one of the pavilions. That history hid in plain sight for 155 years, as we see in this famous engraving of the early years of UVA. Next, please. So along with clearing and terracing the area known as the lawn, or felling trees and milling them into planks, it was mostly enslaved workers. Many young boys who did the backbreaking labor of digging the clay, filling the moles and firing the bricks for the estimated 1.2 million bricks for the rotunda. The fingerprints in the bricks, like these at Monticello, have stories to tell. Our challenge was to make material speak, and to develop methods to thoughtfully remember this community of family, friends, and fellow workers, to revive their humanity while never forgetting the dehumanizing violence of enslavement. Next, please. But someone remembered, and her name was Isabella Givens, a teacher and founder of the Friedman School, which became the Jefferson School in Charlottesville. She was the only member of the enslaved community at UVA, from which the archives have yielded a full name, a date of death, a photograph, and a brief written record of her experiences. She serves as a witness for her community. And this is what she remembers, quote. Can we forget the crack of the whip, cow hide, whipping posts, the auction block, the handcuffs, the spaniels, the iron collar, the negro trader tearing the young child from its mother's breasts as a welp from the lioness? Have we forgotten that by these horrible cruelties, hundreds of our race have been killed? No, we have not, or ever will. And this appears in the memorial on the historical timeline. So once emancipated from enslavement at UVA, Givens joined a vibrant black community, when that next had to struggle against Jim Crow's oppression, white supremacy, and a different but still deadly guise. Diane will share her story of growing up in this community. Next, please. I would like to share with you a little bit about what it was like for me growing up in Charlottesville 100 years after Emancipation Day. At six years of age, I was a news nerd and loved sitting with my mother and father to listen to the CBS even news. We would hear Walter Cronkite close each program with his signature sign off, and that's the way it is. And those days, current and historical events were seen as definitive, concrete and solid. Voices and positions of authority were rarely challenged. On the evening of John Glenn's navigation of friendship sevens orbit around the earth. I would stand in my front yard to ask, why don't I see him? He's high enough up there. I thought that he would break the earth to my literal understanding of Earth's outward layer. It was the same as those model globes that sat on classroom tables. I was concerned that our planet Earth would crack like an egg. Three years later, I discovered a television show called Star Trek. I wanted to boldly go wherever Lieutenant Uhura, Captain Kirk, and first offers a spot with venture. Their inclusive world made me made more sense to me than the world I had come to know. I grew up in the Charlottesville City, City of Charlottesville segregated 10th and Page neighborhood. There were approximately 17 businesses within walking distance and the Safeway grocery store stood on the Southwest Hill called Main Street. We were a sustainable neighborhood that operated as a village whereby each neighbor saw to the needs of the other. We consisted of blue collar workers, civil rights activists, clergymen, doctors, insurance agents, dentist railroad workers, small business entrepreneurs, teachers, World War one and two veterans and morticians. An African American police officer lived one block away, Marvin Townsend. He was one of 12 students that integrated one of two Charlottesville public schools in 1959. They were referred to as the Charlottesville 12. Prior to the 1970s, the City of Charlottesville had no water resource protection programs in place in our community. There were open tributaries called storm sores that flowed from Page Street through Vinegar Hill near downtown. When it rained, the water would swell to the point of overflow. Page Street was considered the flood zone and children on occasion would get swept away by the currents. One such child was a member of the Morton family. He was simply known as the little Morton boy. Families usually attended Abenezer Church, First Baptist, Mon Zion First African Baptist Church, Sign Union Baptist or Trinity Episcopal Church. During that period of time and depending on who the preacher was, we were told that swinging a hem, hand clapping, dancing, shouting, fainting or showing any manner of emotion while we're in worship meant that you were acting too much like a slave. The Jefferson Elementary School was our neighborhood school. We walked three blocks past City Yard, where a dilapidated jailhouse held inmates that shouted at us between the window bars. Their daily rituals was to greet each student walking to and from school. A huge silver bullet shaped gas tank was located on a hill between City Yard and Jefferson School. It was close to where we had our creation activities and the school gymnasium. The older kids would show is going to explode. It's going to explode any day while we're sitting in school. Jefferson Elementary, like most schools in mid 20th century communities, required students to pledge of allegiance to the American flag. My first four years were as follows. Kate raised one and through to citizenship building through through patriotic song and prayer, reading, writing and arithmetic. Attention to being punctual. The emphasis was on regular attendance. Fallout shelter bomb attack, bomb attack awareness drills. They only lasted a little while. Eventually they they stopped that when I was coming along, but I remember in kindergarten doing that a couple of times. The Kennedy program on fitness was incorporated into two hour gym classes. We marched to the chicken fat song, rapping of the maypole or mayday, which usually took place in the parking lot that faced downtown Charlottesville. Grade three, student labeling. Smart, dumb, dark, light, good, bad. SRA readers that determined advancement, for example, week and our strong reading skills were openly measured by color coded cardboard boxes. We were encouraged to focus on the competition, rather than the progress of learning how to read. We also learned to curse of right and how to multiply by third grade. 1963 was the year that we received the news about President John F. Kennedy's assassination. And we were let out of school early on a great November day. Grade four, introduction to Virginia and or geography, Virginia history and or geography field trips plays art journaling. Model citizenship indoctrination was completed. Next please. The Virginia history and government textbook commission was created by a resolution adopted by the Virginia General Assembly during its 1950 session. The pages of our Virginia history book had animated illustrations, which depicted landmarks, people, places and texts that would inform, indoctrinate and shape our young and precious minds into believing that those American history stories were conclusive, factual and definitive. My first visit to Monticello reinforce the textbook animations and narrative related to the dome facing the Southwest lawn and the goldfish pond. Our God said, the dome arrows that of the back of the nickel. We understood that Charlesville Albemarle County was Jefferson's country. And like Frank said the story of Jefferson was an all inclusive bigger than life legacy. However, at that time enslaved people seem like shadows mere mentions, and we're rarely presented as living beings bearing any significant communal presence or historical impact. I didn't expect to see Thomas Jefferson his daughter Patsy or granddaughter standing near the fish pond or as depicted in the book. However, I wondered why there was no mention of slavery at Monticello, or the people who took care of Jefferson's plantation and family. I walked away perplexed, disappointed, and thinking perhaps that the transatlantic slave trade was not real. Maybe it was a fair tale. I remember the word marrow because my eight year old ears had been introduced to a new vocabulary word. Approximately four years later, I took a bicycle ride with my neighborhood friends. That was the first time that I had ventured beyond five blocks on my bike to the University of Virginia central grounds. As I absorbed the beauty of the landmarks like the Rotunda, the UVH chapel and Bell, I would often hear the chimes from my bedroom window. We rode past Brooks Hall along University Avenue near where the memorial to enslaved laborers dedication will be take place. I innocently declared, Wow, this is beautiful. I'm going to go to this school one day. I learned earlier on how landmarks can inform the way we live and play, how they also inform us on whether or not we have inclusive equitable community access to services that improves a community self and well being. The male community engagement process reinforced how important it was to feel, see and experience the awe and admiration of the laborers to be able to marvel at their accomplishments and to consider with the circumstance of their lives might have been The community voices also said how important it would be for the memorial to bring out what's already there in the bricks, the marble, the earth, the people and the history that had been hidden for so long. The 1950s book and introduction to Virginia and America and American history is a story that reflects on my personal truth. I started to take in the memorial to enslave laborers community engagement process to be a part of it because I felt as vulnerable as that six year old child, looking to grapple with the truth about friendship seven. The Confederate statue controversy has started to escalate in 2017. The Charlottesville community would crack like an egg. As I visited the Charlottesville album or public medal and high school students. I would share my story about the history of exclusion that we were taught to quote the Scribner and sons published book all over Virginia boys and girls are working and learning. They're learning to be good citizens in their churches, and in their clubs and on the playgrounds. Every boy and girl who is a good citizen, helps to build a better Virginia and a better world. 100 years after the freedom day celebration in Charlottesville, six graders from all city, all of the city of Charlottesville neighborhoods were enrolled in Jefferson school. I was among the final group of students that finally disaggregated the Charlottesville public schools. The close of 1966 and 16 years after the Virginia assembly approved the Virginia history book. We were left without learning that freedman's aid society sent a young teacher and a gardener to Charlottesville to open a school for former enslaved people. Gardner was a Quaker from Nantucket who grew up in an abolitionist family. She named the Freeman school Jefferson after our nation's third president Thomas Jefferson whom she admired. Shortly after Gardner's arrival, a young black woman Isabella Gibbons asked if she could help teach and work at the school. Gardner initially hired her as a teacher's aide and after further instruction, she became a full fledged teacher in 1867. We were sitting on a historic landmark, a treasure trove if you will, a relevant American history. Yet we had not been taught that Isabella learned to read and write when she served as an enslaved cook for William Barton Rogers, a UVA professor of philosophy. William Gibbons, her husband, served as an enslaved butler for William MacGuffey, who was known for writing the MacGuffey readers. He was also a University of Virginia professor. Isabella Gibbons taught and tell her death in 1889. In retrospect, four years after the authors Dingledine, Boxtel, and Nesbeth wrote Virginia's history. The Supreme Court ended public school segregation. The Virginia General Assembly adopted a policy of massive resistance using the law and the courts to obstruct public school integration. Black Americans were still grappling with the culture of civic belonging. The intangible wall that stood in guard of young African Americans learning is symbolic of the history of exclusion. As we stand beside the memorials eight foot wall to reflect on the enslaved who were hidden in the university's pavilion's pavilion gardens from public view. The memory marks along the memorials wall will continue to tell the unfolding stories of our communities in slave descendants. They consider to remind us of a pathway to inclusion. As an astrophysicist monitors monitors the morphology of a newly discovered planet. Our multi local stories will be unearth revealed and told. I believe our community's journey towards healing will continue to unfold. Next. Thank you so much Diane. So you see here on the left hand side a very compressed timeline I know it's difficult to read, but a timeline of the intensive engagement process so over the course of about six months we engage multiple stakeholders on their turf, going from classrooms at UVA with students and alumni to local community members at the Jefferson schools African American Heritage Center to local historic African American churches. We also have the homes of Jefferson and Madison to talk to members of the descendants of those who were enslaved there. We did so not asking what should this look like but asking what meaning should this have. What do you want to feel when you see this what stories doesn't need to take away to people need to take away. And we also worked with an incredible group of community ambassadors that reached out to other school and church groups, including Diane I think actually went to 10 different groups herself personally. It became clear through that engagement process that for the Memorial to have both meaning and relevance to the multiple publics. It of course had to honor the lives of the enslaved, but it also had to advance the commemorative landscape for racial justice today. Next please. The table has shown and Frank and Diane. Well the architecture of Jefferson is on one hand associated with the ideals of democracy, its foundations were literally built on enslavement and the traces of that enslavement are not only legible in its bricks, but also embedded in its constructed How then to design and add to this landscape and accounting for and then accounting of the lives of the enslaved was our design challenge. The question of whose history, whose stories and whose voices were very critical. The Memorial had to engage both difficult institutional histories, as well as the public history of the community. And engaging and in engaging multiple communities what we heard was that the Memorial would need to tell the unvarnished truth about the past to have any legitimacy. It needed to bring the community together to both learn and reflect on that history, and it needed to express dualities, not only pain and suffering, but also resilience, dignity, and the humanity of those who were enslaved. And lastly, it needed to be a living Memorial, an ongoing Memorial to acknowledge that the work of this commemorative landscape remains incomplete. Next, in order to design the project we first had to start by designing a process, one that foregrounded dialogue and openness and brought the public in very early in the concept design. The project was unusual in that there was no site, no scale and no budget. We tested multiple sites and approaches, including distributed memorials and ephemeral memorials and using quick sketches to draw out the conversation and inspirations of the committees and communities. And what became clear was that in contrast to many monuments that stand as an object in space, the Memorial for enslaved laborers needed to be a space for the people of the present to recognize the legacy of the past. Next. Along with collecting the aspirations that Diane Frank and me Jean described, hearing about desired meanings experiences and the stories that needed to be told by the Memorial. We also researched black traditions and spaces of gathering. As part of our design process, we looked for cultural forms and rituals that could be translated into our design. We explored how people gathered to perform ring shots, a low country ecstatic dance that moves in a circular fashion, its rhythms and movements that draw upon Western African practices. So you see in the middle, we looked at hush harbors, which taught us about how enslaved communities gathered in the forest clear clearings were mobilized for convenings of religious rituals for ceremonies of burial. And for the plotting of insurrection and escapes. And water became a means to tell the story of liberation. Which can be found in Western African libation rituals that honor the spirits of the ancestors and via the currents of rivers that carry people to freedom. Next, please. When we met with the male student group very early on in the design process. They asked us to consider a memorial design that could be a meeting ground for their activism in organizing, as well as a place to learn about the black history that Diane said had not been a part of her education. We heard in our outreach meetings, as meeting and Frank mentioned, that the memorial should forge a connection with the community. In response, and after careful study, we cited the memorial in an area known as the triangle of grass, a threshold to the ground, which made it visible and accessible to the wider Charlottesville community. The memorial connects to the local commemorative landscape. Its circular lawn was designed to be a gatherings place for events such as the yearly Freedom and Liberation March, which occurs on March 3 that remembers the day that Union troops liberated 14,000 enslaved persons in Albemarle County. Next please. And here's the community gathered on Freedom Day, marking the location of the future memorial site with a simple gesture of gathering in a circle. Over and over again we return to the idea that the memorial needed to be a place of gathering that brought people together. The memorial is cited actually in dialogue with the rotunda, which sits at the highest point of the lawn, which Jefferson placed at the ridge line of the hill, upon which the university grounds were built. The careful terracing of the lawn and section allowed Jefferson to create pavilions that were two stories on the lawn side, but three stories on the garden side, creating a lower level walkout basement, which house spaces for the labor of the enslaved. The spaces behind the pavilions enclosed by the famous serpentine walls were work yards where the enslaved laborers chopped wood, hauled water and slaughtered animals. Jefferson understood slavery to be a corned and employed architecture and the architectural section to conceal it. The memorial architecture in contrast works to reveal open and invite utilizing the landscape and the section to create an open bowl like figure in contrast to the closed sphere of the rotunda, both 80 feet in diameter. Next please. The memorial is nestled into the sloping terrain of the triangle of grass, which is within the UNESCO World Heritage Site boundaries, and sits not on an axis, but tangent along an important diagonal path between university and the central village. The determining geometries of the memorial consists of two combs intersecting slightly off axis, resulting in a tilted crescent figure that emerges from the terrain, as the center rain cuts into the ground. The circle, the crescent, the ring, they're all symbols for many things and intentionally hold a multitude of meanings and references. A hollow, a void, a ring shout, it's a lens form, a gesture open to interpretation. The conical intersection creates a series of nested rings offering multiple layers that unfold the stories of the enslaved. The center holds a gathering space, which is inscribed by an inner ring which holds the timeline of historical events. The next layer of the ring creates a concave surface of remembrance and the outer convex surface creates a canvas for expression. Each of these rings speaks to a different layer of history, meaning, and interpretation. Next. The memorial is made essentially out of one material, Virginia misgranted, which is locally quarried about 30 miles from UVA. The goal was to use the full range of this dense stone to enable it to speak in many ways by working the stone through a range of techniques to create carvings, textures and finishes to show a varied expression of the stone. Next, please. The memorial has a prominent presence in the landscape, but because it's nestled into the slope as a landform, it's non-imposing in scale. And the memorial invites you in from the path and you can walk counterclockwise or clockwise, and you begin to lose the horizon line of the extended landscape and the grounds as you develop a more intimate relationship with the memorial. The memorial attempts to do this by the careful calibration between the viewer, the landscape and the section. Here you can see that the memorial inclines ever so slightly downwards, almost unnoticeably when you walk along it, but it actually depresses almost two feet, while the ridge line ascends to reach eight feet in height. This allows you to lose your horizon line gradually but quickly, creating a combined sense of openness and intimacy. Next. Here you can see a cross section through the high point of the memorial showing the geometry of the landform with the inclined walls, the circular path and the timeline bench. The section is designed to describe the human body into the memorial itself. The water table timeline is similar to the scale of a bench, and the concave interior wall slips outward and leans back, which requires you to extend your arms in order to reach and touch its surface. The convex exterior mediates the change in the ground plane, which allows you to see into the memorial openly from higher ground. Next. This is a full scale drawing in our studio testing the angle of inclinations. Here you can see the interior wall relative to the body standing with your foot at its base, the slope of the incline wall connects the foot, your foot to your outstretched arm. On the other side of the wall, the angle is such that you can see over and across the ridge line. Next. And here another mock up this time in stone to fine tune and test the scale geometry textures and techniques in advance of the fabrication for the site. Next. Our team explored numerous sites on the grounds of UVA has been, as has been mentioned before we settled on the triangle of grass location. And for selecting this site out of the many that we studied was based upon feedback and community meetings in which city residents express their strong preference for a site that was visible and accessible to the city of Charlottesville. One of our original quote postcard sketch diagrams shown here indicates the preliminary sighting of the memorial. As the team's landscape architectural firm, our challenge was to transform the slope grass plane of the site to accommodate the memorial, making it appear that it was always there. Creating an 80 foot diameter flat circle for the memorial required cutting into the sloping site, both to make it accessible and to allow the contours to align with the northern escape path. This information required numerous drawings iterations in order to have the result of knitting the site harmoniously with the surrounding landscape. Next please. Our final landscape plan indicates the passage of time. We are now oriented to the north, and the northern escape path is marked by 48 granite stones, referencing the 48 years, the university depended upon enslaved labor. The diagonal brick path leading to the entrance the memorial aligns with the March 3 angle of the setting sun, which is liberation and freedom day. As I mentioned, March 3 1865 was the day that Union troops liberated the more than 14,000 enslaved persons in Albemarle County. Next please. Liberation and freedom day is also referenced in the planting at the center of the memorial. The circular lawn is planted with flowering crocus bulbs that will bloom in February, which is black history month and continue to flower through March 3. The femoral quality of the flowers brings awareness to those who have been overlooked in American history. After the flowers fade, the lawn will return to a space for gathering. Next please. Without the layers of history in the memorial, we worked closely with a group of committed historian, many who sat on the president's commission to study slavery at the university, and who's thoughtful examination of UVAs enslaved community, and the history of slavery at the university provided rich material. To name names to tell the story of the enslaved community required that we engage with an archive of business ledgers. And the domestic spaces of personal letters of slave owners, and as such, it is an archive of daily life, but one laced with violence and with silences. We owned at most two to three slaves, and instead rented the majority of workers to build the university and to take care of the ground. The professors, however, as Diane noted, own slaves who clean, cooked and took care of their families and maintain the classrooms where students learned the hotel owners. The workers of the spaces where student eight also owned enslaved people who cook served cared for and cleaned the student rooms. Next please. Historians estimate that 4000 men women and children built labored and lived at UVA from 1817 to 1865, but we know very little about the details of their life. They are now recognized by memory marks, which are read across the inner arc of the memorial. For most 3111 persons to be exact archival material like ledgers did not record a first name or a last name. In the archives, they are the unknown unknown. The letter on the right shows records for 889 persons, but not all the records recorded names and sometimes the letter may mention simply three negro hands were hired for a week, or that one person was rented for a year. Of those 889 references, we know only mostly first names of 577 community members. Like Isabella Gibbons, Sally Cottrell or Harry Martin, we know first and last names. For the remaining 3111 recorded persons, we used kinship relations and occupations to remember their lives. Next, the results of this historical research yielded the design of a kind of genealogical cloud of the community, which stretches in chronological order across the inner surface. Of the memorial. So as Meejin describes as you walk in, you become enveloped by this cloud of names and of relationship. Next please. The list of names, a traditional feature in Western memorials, reimagined, reimagined social relations and rehumanizes the experiences of the enslaved. Others thus engage Henry, Isabella, Jane, Jack, Robert, Randall, as families of sisters, grandmothers, uncles and friends, as workers who took pride in their work as woodcutters, janitors, laundresses, or as a fiddler. Carved into the hewn granite, the 4000 memory marks speak back, sometimes as seen here with tears to their descendants and to us. The tactility of the granite, as Meejin mentions, draws us to it to touch and to be touched. Next please. So here you see the names remembering the enslaved across from a bench with the timeline and the water feature that captures the attentions of visitors who learn a different history of the university. In contrast to the wall of marks and names which rises and inclines outward, a shallow near level water table shares with visitors the history of enslavement at the university. Position just below the knee, visitors lean in almost in a bowing posture to read the entries of the timeline. Next, the 70 entries inscribed into the water table begin with the arrival of the enslaved in Virginia and 1619 and ends with the passing of Isabella Givens in 1890. It covers the arrival of 10 enslaved laborers to clear the land that would become UVA in 1817 and covers a history of transactions, work, and violence. I'd like to read a sample of some of the entries. 1820 to 22. Sam works for two years at the university as a blacksmith. 1832. Three professors purchase Lewis Commodore at public auction for the school's use. They later, they are later reimbursed, and he becomes UVA property. In 1856, an enslaved 11 year old girl is beaten unconscious by UVA student, claiming his right to discipline any slave, he suffers no consequence. Next, please. This is a synced a matter of fact tone of the timeline entries, paints the difficult and unvarnished history of the life and violence of slavery with poignancy. Each word painstakingly deliberated and debated by the committee of historians, including members of our design team for nuance and meaning. We often think about our history as a given, as with Diane's textbook of Virginia history. But in this case, we were witnessing the active writing of history from an archive of slavery that brings hidden truths out into the open as a rich and difficult public history to be shared and discussed in the public space of the memorial. In reference to the libation rituals and currents of rivers that carry people to freedom, which Mabel highlighted earlier, a steady stream of shallow water washes over the entire arc of the timeline. Next. As I mentioned, the design was informed by an extensive community engagement process that clarify the importance of a visual representation of enslaved people, the desire for imagery that portray triumph over despair, and visual cues to suggest who the enslaved were, how they lived and what they did. The plantations took place at UVA and around Charlottesville and all Brahmall County and places such as the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, the Jefferson School, Charlottesville High School, Monticello and Montpelier plantations. They included genealogical groups who could trace their ancestry to the people who were enslaved in Charlottesville and by UVA. I was invited to the team to research and design a response to some of these community perspectives and develop an expression for the exterior surface of the memorial that would complement the design elements on the interior. Those being the memory marks and the libation timeline. I became interested in layering the information gleaned from conversations, historic sites and archives such as rare photographs of people enslaved by UVA, rough tuned tombstones from the Daughters of Zion African American Barrel Ground, and the vertical quarry marks and stone that would eventually be worked away at the hands of skilled masons. Another reason I was invited to the team relates to an ongoing project called becoming visible that I started around 2012. The series of self portraits pays homage to Trayvon Martin and also challenges the social media's role in sensationalizing the killing of innocent African Americans. The series relies on software to generate photorealistic carvings. The technique was inspired by traditional wood carvings and bronze statues from Benin in West Africa. These historical objects depict the king of Benin or oba with contoured lines on his face. Traditionally, some ethnic groups in Africa use scarification as a means of taxonomy. In this case, I used engraved lines to generate an image of my own face as an expression of solidarity for the families of innocent African American people whose lives were taken unjustly. We can imagine so many of their names and faces, even with our eyes wide open. From the thousands of people enslaved at UVA, we were only able to locate photographs of four or five different people. We're looking at a close up of a photograph of Isabella Gibbons eyes. The original images in the archives of the Boston Public Library. Isabella Gibbons was enslaved by Professor William Barton Rogers. She operated on the spectrum of resistance as someone who taught herself and others to read and write while they were enslaved. She witnessed freedom and liberation in Charlottesville when 14,000 people were no longer owned as property. Isabella and her family remained in the area, and as Mabel mentioned, she became a teacher at the Friedman School until her death. One of her descendants is a graduate of UVA's art school of architecture. In so many ways, she exemplifies the spirit of triumph over despair. To realize the relief image in stone, we had to develop a unique process and customize software. First, we needed to translate intensity data from a photograph into a virtual model, then we generated a machine toolpath that would cut out and create a virtual surface, which was then overlaid on a digital model of the memorial's curved surface. All this took place digitally, working with remote teams before we could cut into stone. Next slide. During the design and fabrication phase, we worked with Quora Stone Company in Madison, Wisconsin. Their stone carving and technical facilities are standing. With them, we developed a custom parametric photocarving technique using Rhino and Grasshopper. This allowed us to work through the challenging variables of material, geometry, and scale. The stone that you see here is Virginia Mest, a dark granite with light colored, randomized striations from a quarry in cold pepper Virginia, not far from UVA. The quarry we developed an understanding of how the final appearance was affected by different lighting conditions and surface finishes. Next slide. This project ties together so many sensitive and unsettled themes. The memorial is a large conically curved surface overlaid with a gouge pattern, a metaphor for weathered, scarred skin, and rough-hewn stone. The photocarp portrait is approximately eight feet by 39 feet. Typically, this photocarving technique is applied to flat surfaces. During the development process, we made full-scale mock-ups to test the concept for legibility of the eyes and better understand the user experience. Next slide. Looking at this section of the memorial's exterior surface, we can see an image of Isabella Gibbons' eyes. From various positions, we can view the memorial and reflect on those that it's meant to honor. The eyes are symbolic of all those who were enslaved and their descendants who can now witness this change and hopefully more positive change for black people. The gaze is directed out into and beyond the city of Charlottesville. Together, all these elements suggest a colossus figure, no longer hidden, rising from the grounds, becoming visible. In many ways, Isabella was with us from the beginning, and she remains both the watcher and the witness over the memorial. Next. The memorial was a result, as you can see, of an effort of a large group of individuals without whom this could not have happened. From the students that began the process 10 years ago to the incredible advocacy of others and individuals at UVA, to the input of the community. And last but not least, those who literally crafted and built the memorial. The caring commitment of Devon Henry of Team Henry, a black owned business, was instrumental in ensuring that the project would be executed with excellence. And other key built team member was Chora Stone, who fabricated and delivered and installed all the stonework, as Etto showed, with a high degree of craftsmanship and precision. Right, we see Mike Spence from Team Henry, who is not only the site superintendent, but served as a de facto public interface, explaining the memorial's design intent to the general public, all through the construction process. Next. The project is fundamentally a new horizon line on the campus, and that horizon line is made up of many different stones, each and every one unique. You'll note that none of the surfaces or interfaces are planar. All the segments are curved, inclined and non standard. To make many parts coalesce into a singular whole require careful precision and coordination across the extended construction and fabrication team. And here view from the exterior finish memorial which highlights how dualities, the pain and violence, dignity and humanity, and the many layers of meaning come together as a whole. We see the high contrast between the smooth and somber interior and the rough and striated exterior seamlessly coming together. The landform quality of the concave and the convex meeting to communicate something for which we may still be struggling to find words. Next. We wanted the Charlottesville album world communities to take to have a stake in the memorial's historical significance. I believe that intergenerational investment is an important component to include during transformative history making moments like the memorial with the memorial, Tinsley laborers was conceived, the concept was conceived. In a sense the memorial is like a living breathing organism, it will most likely take on whatever meaning we ascribe to it. As we each take ownership of its space and place, please be mindful or let us be mindful that we can decidedly bring forth the energies of disruption and division, or the power of intent to repair, heal and unify. The memorial is timeless. Next. Dorothy is our community genealogist. She embraces the community engagement approach to her research. Finding the enslaved laborers also involves connecting to families like mine, surnames like Brown's, Henderson's and Hughes's to other families in our county and surrounding counties. While burning the midnight oil during Shelley zoom a sessions. The sobering reality is this. My generation was not that far removed from slavery. The truth matters. And the engagement continues to make this a living memorial as intended. As construction began UV actually hired Dr Murphy to trace the descendants of the enslaved whose names have been discovered by the historians and inscribed on the wall of the memorial. Pictured here we have two of them to Tisa gathers and calling the eight who are local activists and leaders in the descendant community. They are also key members of an ongoing community engagement committee that was formed during construction to determine memorialization and to consult on such topics as education, developing a new website and other issues, but perhaps most certainly to continue to connect UV staff and faculty with community members. There's also a descendant committee made up entirely of descendants that consults with the historians on a regular basis. And there are also many, many others who help bring the memorial to life, all of whom have a strong sense of ownership, not only in the memorial, but in the larger work of racial justice that it represents. Key members of the larger team are listed here, many of whom I hope are listening to this webinar. We owe so many people deep gratitude for encouragement, participation and support of this process. So the memorial is a living and breathing organism as Diane asserted. When new names come to light, as some did recently, they will rejoin their community. The new names will be hand carved into the granite, and people will gather to enact a new commemorative ritual yet to be determined. The memorials reflective and inscribed surfaces, its geometries, its paths, its landscape and gathering spaces commemorate a black community who worked, birthed, played, loved, weep, died, escaped, resisted and refused enslavement together. We must remember their suffering, their dignity and their freedom. As did the protest at the memorial that occurred just days after the removal of the construction fence and the memorial had not been officially dedicated. Organized by white coats for black lives at UVA's medical school. The group gathered and kneeled for eight minutes and 40 seconds in remembrance of George Floyd, a gruesome reminder of the violences, the violence and injustices that persist in the wake of slavery. The memorial for enslaved laborers at UVA came into fruition through a collective desire to face the past, to reckon with the truth, including the horrible cruelties, as Gibbons timeline quote recounts. With Isabella Gibbons as witness for and the watcher of her community, the memorial brings her life, their lives, known and unknown together with ours. Thank you. Thank you all so much for that. Just extraordinary presentation. You know, the storytelling the memorial itself just generates a lot for us to think about and and and I'm sure that there are a number of questions. So we have one question from an audience member Jane Benson. And her question is about the naming of the memorial. She says, excellent presentation. Thank you. Question. Why is the memorial not called the memorial to enslaved people. It's called the memorial to enslave laborers. Thank you. And I so I was actually since I supervised the students who were the interns and who were the ones who started that it was named that by the black students who wanted that to be the name. I think there was some debate over whether to keep that or to name the people. And I think there can continue to be some debate about that. I think it also has a number of informal names that people have been giving it and some such as freedom ring, you know, that are maybe a little less informal too. But anyway, it was kept because that was the name that the African American students that had envisioned this memorial came up with originally. Thank you. The next one isn't a question is simply a Bravo from Mario Gooden. Absolutely brilliant inspiring and joy says black joy, which is an interesting commentary that that the memorial not only inspires reflection, right, and reflection around a very painful past but a sense of joy as well. Okay, the next one is not a question but a comment. It's the best executed and also most substantively powerful presentation I have seen this season. I have an agreement with that. And my question while we're, while we're gathering some others is, where are you all doing this kind of presentation, I, you know, we have access to it here. But I'm wondering if you all are planning to share this with communities or if you've already shared it with communities. Where are you, where are you doing it. That was the bulk of my communicate to engagement with the students at school. And they were, they asked when I showed them the book actually had the physical copy of the book with me. And it's the original textbook my mother held on to it when she passed away. I was cleaning her house and I found it in a pile. So I said that book is following me. It's on purpose because it just won't go away, but it's been passed down my kids scribbled in it it has marks from when my kids were learning how to write. And it's the original book that I, that I own when I was in the fourth grade. That's extraordinary. It really is it goes to show us, you know how our interpretations and understandings of history change over time. Another, another, you know, applause for you all for a smooth and fascinating presentation and then a question that opens with beautiful. How long did the memorial take to build, and were there any demonstrations, or people who expressed opposition to the I think we can say in the, in the design phase, I think we only had one comment we had 352 people that actually took surveys in addition to hundreds that participated elsewhere and only one comment that was a kind of a snarky comment. There were concerns that I'm in a memorialization when there's so many racial disparities that we have, couldn't we invest this in education and so forth and I think, you know the answer that has been given is we need to do both right. We need to fight white supremacy in every way whether it's in the landscape whether it's in unmarked histories, or whether it's in the racial disparities to I think there's an invitation for you to speak at UT Austin by audience members charise Smith so I'm sure she will follow up on that. I'm john egan says beautiful design, I agree. How did howler you receive this commission. So, I think we received this commission because of this team. It was a open call for teams and Eric and I imagined who the most incredible people to work with would be for this project. And I think because of that we were able to as a team, get the commission for for the opportunity and honor to work on this extraordinary team. Can I just add to that. I just want to say, and I think it really is, and we, we are very grateful to both Legion and Eric for having really the vision to find people that they knew who would ask the right questions like who were, you know, kind of deeply engaged and understood sort of the stakes of the project because as Legion said, it is like it's almost kind of like the either architect dream or nightmare. No budget, no pro like they did the university didn't know. So part of it was a process of helping the university figure this out. And I do want to maybe go back to that that the slide that we showed about three slides back that that had the list of all the people involved I mean it literally was a village that took this and we had really great collaborators in the architect's office, Alice Rousher, Mary Hugh, Serita Herman, who is our, our project manager and they were just phenomenal and the PCSU had also done a lot of ground work as community liaison so we really did walk into an amazing kind of infrastructure of really committed people that sort of grew in in our very, very open process. And so it was really just a remarkable group of people and so somebody asked about like this presentation it's, it works because we listened to each other, you know, we were thoughtful we I miss you guys. But it really was a really amazing group of people Diane and all the other folks calling, you know, who who were part of the process. The selection group which included community members really liked that we didn't come with a plan we we didn't come with the design. We came with say a statement and a commitment to engage the community and developing that and I know that I heard afterwards from them. That's what they really appreciated. We're willing to listen. So someone says they hope this program will be available for wide viewing. I can't imagine a more moving model for what working through racism means working through history. Also, Charles stupid ask, how can we obtain a copy of the brief. So I can use it when I visit UVA. Is that something that's what would you recommend. I don't understand the design brief or I mean, that would be fascinating actually to relook at the design brief. I'm sure we strayed from the brief as as the journey unfolded but I will actually dig that up for my own, my own memory. So this is an endless and sobering history lesson as well as a critical and inspirational example of how every community needs to reckon with our past I do think it presents a model and each community of course will be unique to its own history but it certainly does prevent a model for communities that want to engage in this process and I think there will be many more brilliant and gorgeous work. Thank you all so much for your hard work and commitment to this project. How was the project funded. I mean, it was the University of Virginia. So I think it was both University funds and also private donations that that funded the project. I do think I am a UVA alum as is Frank. And so we know what it's like to be in a university so invested in tradition and so also it's I think it's important to give props to the university for willing to do this work and it as as Frank said this was like years of work and there was work to get that first placard into the ground right and those were again students who made those demands. So it's been a multi year process of the university really reckoning and investing and this is part of a larger project there's now a committee to study the era of Jim Crow segregation. It says a lot about students to their students investment in their institution and even though they're you know they're there for four years but they can do all kinds of transformative things. All right, the image of Isabella Gibbons eyes carved into the stone gave me goosebumps me too. I can't wait to see it in person question has the memorial been treated well by the Charlottesville and UVA community since its installation. I can answer that. Diane and Greg, you know who are also local can answer that although you know what the others have spent an awful lot of time in Charlottesville to so but yeah I think it's been treated with enormous respect and I think that the last images showing the use of it falling the murder of George Floyd are exactly what the students initially envisioned, although we couldn't have envisioned you know something happening so quickly of that sort and so dramatically. There's no there's there's been no trying to think of the word. I think there's been no indication of any disrespect at this point, we can expect it, you know that there's nothing that's not going to go mark by white supremacy but very popular and kind of an answer to one of the questions. The students from local schools have been visiting it since it was first announced in the site marked before it was even started under construction classes are, you know, visiting it. Not right this minute because we are actually all virtual. But some of the university classes are in person so we are seeing some of those visiting it too. I'm going to ask for there are a number of questions about the availability of this the recording of this and maybe in the chat. You know, someone can post whether or not this recording of this will be available so that will respond to all of those questions and anonymous attendee ask. Hi Virginia tech and wonder how conversations about legacies of slavery can be better taught with Virginia history national history overall I wish I knew about this ongoing, even at a rival school with its own history of slavery. And that's just a kind of wondering out loud but it would seem in so many ways that exactly projects like this, which engage communities, and are accessible and available to communities outside of what happens in the classroom is one way to begin that public teaching about the as a white American expat in the majority black community of Bermuda I'm involved in D&I efforts with K through 12 school. Could this recording that's an availability availability of the recording, the stonework particularly the eyes on the exterior is remarkably powerful. Can you speak a little more about how you worked with the quarry and fabricators to generate such unique forms. And start with conversation about the fabricators quarter stone. A lot of experimentation, you know, as I mentioned, we see this technology, this kind of photo realistic carving applied to flat surfaces usually on a much smaller scale. But this was a huge monumental literally monumental scale project with this complex conical surface. So we they literally we worked with them to literally develop custom software and the custom algorithm that can interpret the variation in the gouge pattern on the surface. And predict just how deep the robots should carve into the stone to ensure that that photo realistic image of her eyes is still maintained. So, and we had the opportunity to create full scale mock ups of actual size because we really wanted to test it out and it was accurate and it was legible and we had to sample in different lighting conditions and literally dance around the form as well to see what happened as we moved to see what happened to the eyes so it was a sort of an intense research and design project within, you know, a larger research and design project. Someone says they may have missed this but can you talk about the specific location. How was the specific location chosen. Can the team talk about the building that was taken down for this beautiful memorial to be built. And did the building have overt racist history. There was taken down. I'm sorry Greg say there was no building taken down. No building was taken down. Right. We, well, our offices in Charlottesville and we had done a number of projects with UVA over the years, many years and I think the brief was sort of as Regent mentioned system staggering and that they said, you, we don't know what this is. And so we said we're going to listen to the community and come up with a design that is based on what they're saying so and they said, we think this might be a memorial. And so they said, you know, we don't know. We want you to deal with this topic. And so they also said, you have access to any site on grounds, which is also read, not normal. The university normally says this is your site, you will build it here and make this work. So in that process we looked at, I would say, for at least four sites pretty seriously. In addition to the one that we ended up coming to but became clear that African American community was not going to feel comfortable in the inner sanctum of the grounds of UVA that I would not be quote their space. So the idea of having a space that would open out to the city. Once we came upon this site it became pretty clear this was going to be the best site to work on. So I just want to let people know who've been asking about the recording that it will be available on gseps website, as well as the websites of all the partnering organizations and institutions so yes this should be widely available. We are almost a time and so I'm going to do a very difficult thing. And just raise two questions from the from the list. One is about the issues on the memorial had a wet appearance around them. Was this intentionally designed or was it caused by the weather when the photos were taken. If this wet appearance was intentional. Does it represent tears of pain and sadness or sorrow of the laborer so that's one about the tears. And the other one is. Is there anything you would change in hindsight. Is there any detail or part of the design process that you would change if you could. Maybe I could talk about the first one and someone else from the design team could talk about the second, second question. So the memory marks are inscribed crescent shaped lines, you know, carved into the stone. Is there crescent shape and kind of go deep in water when it rains collects in that crescent shaped carving for every memory mark. And so, even as the rain stops because the water catches there and pools. It feels like the memorial is crying or bleeding at those moments so the photos that were shown were taken right after it had rained. And so the hindsight question anyone want to answer that any detail or part of the design you could change. I don't. I mean that's a really great question. Yeah, it's a really hard thing to answer only because I think of as we said, we kind of didn't know where this was going. I mean it was very much a process, just also part of the reason we've done this as a kind of collective presentation, with three voices in the project. And, and, and so in hindsight, you know, like I'm really curious like, okay, once they start, you know, carving the names by hand like what will that do to the texture of the wall right and the names that are founded what is that ritual going to be it's like I'm sort of future. And the memorial, you know, we like to think of it as a process because the formation of the descending group and all the people who are now engaged was part of the process. So it's more, we've been thinking about it less as a thing and more, you know, as this process that has have drawn people together. I just wanted to say unanimously the community wanted to wanted it to be visible wanted it to be there at that site. And also it has that connect the connects to other history. It connects to Jefferson schools as well as the monzyme, first African Baptist church and Ebenezer, not Ebenezer, but first Baptist church on Main Street, because that location used to be the Delevin hotel, where Civil War, it was a civil war soldiers and Isabella Gibbons also taught there that was the, the Delevin hotel was the very first site of the Jefferson school before it moved to the location it's, it's now a fort and commerce streets. So it was meant to be there for the idea of connecting connecting it to other historical sites throughout the city. Thank you so much. There's so many more questions that we didn't get to which just goes to show how rich and generative this program has been. We so appreciate having you here with us to share about this remarkable Memorial, and hopefully we're entering a period in our country's history, where there are more projects like this happening and more teams of people like you all coming together. Thank you all who have joined us the recording will be available. I apologize for not getting to all of your questions but I'm sure you'll have a chance to think about them even more, keep up with this project and maybe they will be answered. Thank you all. Good night. Thank you.