Below the Surface

2023

Stoneware, Tennessee ball clay, 19th century land deeds and trusts, 3M double hook Velcro, nails

Mapping a section of White County, Tennessee, the ceramic tiles that compose this work are embedded with land deeds and trusts connected to the Eastland family, who owned a large portion of the county. Enslaved Black men, women, and children were often used as payment in these land transactions. The jagged lines cutting through the piece represent a former railroad – now a street called Old Railroad Grade Road – and what is now called Clifty Creek. During my research, I heard about burial grounds of the enslaved who were forced to build this stretch of railroad tracks in the early 1800s along the street. This piece exposes the whitewashing of history, the violent division of land in this region through paper transactions that enabled the buying and selling of Black people as currency, the forced labor building the railroad, and the subsequent absence of voices of people of color from the historical records.

With this work, I recognize the enslaved Black men, women, and children who were forced to give their blood, sweat, and lives in the building of this railroad to further the westward expansion of colonialism.