A brand new sculpture park on the banks of the Alabama River in Montgomery won’t solely home modern works by Kehinde Wiley, Rose B. Simpson, Theaster Gates and others, however can be centred round what’s being dubbed the Nationwide Monument to Freedom. The centrepiece of Freedom Monument Sculpture Park can be 43ft tall and 150ft lengthy, and can honour the 4 million enslaved Black individuals who have been emancipated following the tip of the US Civil Conflict. The park will open to the general public in early 2024.
Freedom Monument Sculpture Park is an initiative of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an organisation based and led by public curiosity lawyer Bryan Stevenson that additionally operates the Nationwide Memorial for Peace and Justice—a memorial to victims of lynchings and different types of racist terrorism—and the Legacy Museum, each additionally in Montgomery. Collectively, the three websites overseen by EJI can be dubbed the Legacy Websites.
The brand new 17-acre park’s central monument will characteristic the roughly 120,000 documented final names of enslaved individuals on the time of emancipation, as a tribute to the horrors they endured and the households they constructed. Writings by civil rights activists Frederick Douglass, James Weldon Johnson and Harriet Tubman will determine prominently within the plaza surrounding the monument.
The Alabama River close to the location of the brand new Freedom Monument Sculpture Park Equal Justice Initiative/Human Footage
The modern artwork within the park will embrace each present and specifically commissioned works. New items created by Alison Saar and Kwame Akoto-Bamfo can be put in alongside works by Wangechi Mutu, Wiley, Gates and Simpson.
“As a way to deepen our collective understanding of racial injustice and its affect on modern points, our nation should reckon with the painful historical past and legacy of slavery,” Stevenson mentioned in a press release. “Historic examination and memorialisation are essential to assist transfer us ahead and construct more healthy communities, and we’re honoured to work with among the best modern artists to offer a cultural house for all guests to have interaction with this very important a part of historical past.”
The Legacy Museum and the Nationwide Memorial for Peace and Justice have been inaugurated in 2018. The museum consists of Fashionable and modern works by artists together with Hank Willis Thomas, Glenn Ligon, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Titus Kaphar, and Sanford Biggers.
