black echoes//brick ripples (2025)
Set Up
3, 6x8 portable dance mirrors
Chalk
Watercolor
4, custom sewn, multi-fabric sheets
2, wooden support beams
3 projectors
3-6 speaker set up
2 microphones (contact or dynamic)
Duration: 15’
black echoes//brick ripples engages past, present, and future histories–real and imagined–of the bamboo forest trail located next to the Duke University Arts Annex, an area once owned by a prominent Black family in the 1900s, the Fitzgeralds. The former Fitzgerald property, now owned by Duke University, was once owned by Richard Fitzgerald, great-grandfather to civil rights activist Pauli Murray and prominent Black businessman and community leader in Durham at the turn of the 20th century. The land, affectionately called “The Maples” by the Fitzgerald family, was once home to Fitzgerald’s successful brick business and the site of the family mansion. After the Fitzgerald family sold the property, the family home was disassembled and sold for materials, and the land was subsequently sold to Duke University in the mid 1900s. There is no visual or written acknowledgement of this important site of Black history and the impact of the Fitzgerald family on the Durham community.
The installation pulls together audio and visual field recordings, community protest and interviews, archival material from and about Pauli Murray and Richard Fitzgerald, and archival material from the land, along with original electronic music that responds to these materials through live processing to grapple with questions of what was lost, who has been erased, and how that has impacted this land and our relationship to it. Amplitude tracking will monitor participant spatialization and “loudness” in the space, allowing audience members to interact with the installation, determining the ordering and distortion of sonic and visual materials in real time.
This installation was made in collaboration with visual artist Kate Alexandrite and presented at Ark Dance Studio on August 3, 2025 in Durham, NC with support from New Music USA.