BCA Fall Exhibitions 2020: Becci Davis Gallery Guide

Unprecedented?, BCA Center installation view, 2020

B ECCI DAVI S A RTIST FOCU S

In the Shadow of Dixie, 2018-ongoing Multimedia Installation: Single-channel video of intervention documentation, monitor, archival pigment prints, original interpretive signage, display case with offset-printed postcards, video stills, facsimile of a February 23, 1803 issue of Louisville Gazette and Republican Trumpet, facsimiles of antique tourist postcards, and facsimiles of handwritten postcards from intervention 84" x 174" x 24" (Video: 9:58 minutes) Price Available Upon Request In the Shadow of Dixie is a project about practicing empathy and challenging what we think we know about the past. The research stage of this project shook my very being when I realized that much of the history I had accepted as fact was based in mythology, delusion, and the willful erasure of opposing views.

The concurrent pandemics of systemic racism and COVID-19 that are devastating Black, Indigenous, and communities of color have sparked global expressions of grief, fear, righteous anger, and exhaustion. Members of these communities understand that the underlying conditions for the current crises are infused in the bedrock of our nation. For me, despite the discomfort and pain, it has also been a time of hope and liberation. We are witnessing the power of citizenship, collaboration, and community. We are standing on the precipice of pure possibility. As we move onward, we must also look back; acknowledging and accepting the whole legacy of our past and using that knowledge to reach our full potential.

- Becci Davis

Becci Davis (b. 1978, Fort Benning, Georgia) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the relationship between history, monuments, and the African American experience through her researched-base performance art. Her project, In the Shadow of Dixie, reveals the role of Southern women in establishing Confederate monuments by means of grassroots organizing, and creates a call to action to expose the ongoing trauma and exploitation these sites inflict on African Americans. By physically occupying each monument’s space, Davis powerfully reclaims and transforms the site in honor of her ancestors and community.

On the first anniversary of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—a gathering of white supremacists protesting the removal of the city’s Confederate monument—Davis left her home in Wakefield, Rhode Island, to travel to cities from her youth and confront their Confederate monuments.

Over the course of two weeks, she “held space” at public monuments in Athens, Augusta, Louisville, and Decatur, Georgia. Davis wrote two postcards to every politician with jurisdiction over the site: the first, contended why each monument was inappropriate and could not remain; the second, stated how the monument’s presence impacted her personally. Each card ends with a request for the politician to make a public statement for or against the structures’ removal.

Commentary

Becci Davis In the Shadow of Dixie My first recorded ancestors arrived in America on the shores of North Carolina in 1700 in chains bound by their hands, neck, and feet after spending several months on a ship lying in feces and urine, surrounded by sickness and death, and given orders by angry men of whom they cannot understand the language.

Imagine months in darkness, hearing the cries of the many who surround you, and suffocating in your own cries, fear, and anguish. Trauma is not a strong enough word to describe that experience.

One of the most powerful moments in my life was visiting the many slave auction blocks in Montgomery, Alabama. The one I visited first particularly struck me the most. It was so quiet – no one was around. The lawns were perfectly manicured. The sun was shining. I sat there for a long time, breathing in the air; touching the soil that I knew carried the DNA from the blood, sweat, and tears of many. My mind juxtaposed the seemingly normal day, and beautiful space, with the horror of women, men, and children being sold like the aloofness of buying groceries. The panic and humiliation of being stripped naked so that the prospective slave owners can see the endowments of their purchase.

The major banks were there to sign off on the mortgages. Did you know that enslaved people were mortgaged—like a home? Paperwork attached that described features, but no names.

Nameless people deprived from everything that made them human, and destined to spend their lives hopeless, abused, and in exhaustive terror. I remained there to feel a connection with them because many in my bloodline went to the auction block never to be seen or heard from again. Nameless. A few blocks away from that spot, are the Confederate Memorial Monument and The First White House of the Confederacy. When I asked “why is Montgomery a ghost town,” I was told the very day I visited remnants of the horrors of slavery was a state holiday celebrating Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ birthday.

Most people, I was informed, were home barbequing and celebrating the holiday for a man who defended slavery to the point of war. That’s the America I have raging through my veins—torturer and tortured, and a constant reminder of the celebration of a time that most say they want me to forget. A discussion of confederates without slavery is void.

Tyeastia Green Director Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, City of Burlington Burlington, VT

Biographies Becci Davis (b. 1978, Fort Benning, Georgia) is an interdisciplinary artist whose works explores the relationship between history, monument, and the relationship between the African American experience and performance art. Davis holds a BFA from Columbus State University, Georgia and an MFA from Lesley University, Massachusetts. Her works have been exhibited at the Photographic Museum of Humanity, Hera Gallery in Rhode Island, the St. Botolph Club Foundation, Massachusetts, and the Granoff Center at Brown University, Rhode Island; and the Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro. She was the recipient of the 2019 City of Providence Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism Project Fund Grant; the 2018 RISD Museum Artist Fellowship; the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship in New Genres; and the St. Botolph Emerging Artist Award. Davis was Co-curator of Unpolished Legacies in Providence and Guest Curator of Will Work for Revolution at RISD Museum, Rhode Island.

She currently resides with her family in Wakefield, Rhode Island.

Tyeastia Green is the Director of Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging for the City of Burlington. Green received her Bachelor’s in Information Technology from Kaplan University, Chicago and completed her MPA in Public AffairsAntiracism/Racial Social Justice and Public Policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Prior to her role with the City of Burlington, Green worked with the City of Bloomington. While working for the City of Bloomington she developed racial equity programs, including the Start Seeing Color campaign, which brings visibility to race. Green’s work focuses on inclusion, and specifically, on working toward normalizing ‘others’ through engagement, facilitation, and education. Tyeastia Green currently resides in Vermont.

Participating Artists Jeremy Ayers, Becci Davis, Lillie Harris, Akiko Jackson, Brielle Rovito, EveNSteve (Eve and Steve Schaub), Dan Siegel, and Sarah Camille Wilson Community Contributors Tyeastia Green, Elizabeth Goldstein, Carmen Jackson, Milton Rosa-Ortiz, and Tamara Waraschinski

Unprecedented? is presented as part of 2020 Vision: Reflecting on a World-Changing Year, a statewide exhibition initiative of the Vermont Curators Group.

Burlington City Arts is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts through the New England Arts Resilience Fund, part of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund, an initiative of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with major funding from the federal CARES Act from the National Endowment for the Arts.

2020 EXHIBITION YEAR PRESENTED BY

BCA Exhibitions are funded in part by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Vermont Arts Council.

BURLINGTON CITY ARTS 135 CHURCH STREET, BURLINGTON, VERMONT, 05401 BURLINGTONCITYARTS.ORG