(Gabrielle Dandridge, C/O '27) General Museum Visit --- 2 PTS

 

Photo: Visiting Calida Rawles: “Away with the Tides” Display at the Spelman Museum

On August 26, alongside a couple of friends who are a part of the AUC Art Collective, I visited “Away with the Tides”, Calida Rawles exhibit at the Spelman Museum. The exhibit's main focus was Black Americans’ connection to physical and spiritual community, environmental locality, and the narrative of their physical placement. 

I felt really inspired by the museum’s exhibit; I’m really interested in the construction of gentrification, redlining, and political choice, which stimulates environmental disconnection from American land. I found Rawls's depiction of water in a baptismal context to be truly interesting and thought-provoking. The image depicted above stood out to me alongside the videography piece called We Gonna Swim, 2024. The imagery of water acts as an apology and as rebirth in the face of political division of land for Black Americans. As someone interested in becoming an environmental attorney and legal academic, I felt incredibly inspired by the visuals in Rawles’ exhibit. Further, after the research I conducted this summer in comparing the political landscapes of Cancer Alley and the development of data centers in the South, this exhibit felt personal, interdisciplinary, and inspirational for me.