INAUGURAL EXHIBITION
Amanda Russhell Wallace:
Sojourner’s Silked Shadows
September 14 –
October 19, 2024
Opening:
September 14, 4-6 pm
Artist Statement
Sojourner’s Silked Shadows is an installation inspired by Sojourner Truth’s subversive use of photography and narrative. Truth is famously associated with the quote “I sell the shadow to support the substance.” This copyrighted, declarative interjection printed on various cartes de visite, as discussed in Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby’s book Enduring Truths: Sojourner’s Shadows and Substance, weaves together personifications of economics, science, technology, and most importantly, ownership and freedom.
When I first learned that Truth’s former home in Florence, MA, still existed, I expected to be able to go inside and encounter Truth’s shadow. I wanted to see her indexical spirit amongst untouched nineteenth century objects one encounters on tours of historic places and homes. I wanted to feel the echoes of Truth’s textually documented oratory prowess. I expected my discussions with staff at the David Ruggles Center and the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee in Florence to provide the answers and experiences we all wanted. But that was and is impossible. However, fabrication buries itself in the possible.
This exhibition not only reimagines Truth’s shadowed domicile and domesticity. It speaks to ideas of fabrication, silk-like abilities, masks, and the ability to shapeshift that have carried many Black women as methods of survival or creativity amongst various audiences. Just as I have done in a previous, related series, How to preserve dead flowers, this exhibition continues my interest in visual critical fabulation and historical collaging.
Amanda Russhell Wallace is a lens-based multimedia artist and family documentarian. Her primarily photography-based practice examines various loci of dissociation and dis-remembering within the formation, performance, and presentation of identities/selves across time. She often sources archival and contemporary remnants of speech, texts, imagery, including medical references, to conduct what she calls historical collaging. It is a method of bridging the past and present. She has recently been visualizing notions of residence for explorations of migration, genealogy, domesticity, and other parameters of home-making, with a focus on Black American experiences.
Wallace’s work has been shown nationally and internationally in a variety of venues, including the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, El Museu Valencià de la Il·lustració i la Modernitat (MuVIM), Newark Museum, and Flux Factory. Her project, Mourning Breaks, was granted the 2020 Documentary Essay Prize from the Center of Documentary Studies at Duke University. Additionally, in 2021 she was awarded a research and development grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. She is currently Assistant Professor of Art at Connecticut College.
Artist’s Website: www.amandarwallace.com