Stargazer
Date2022
MediumFabric, ribbon, wood and rope, fabric dye, marker, acrylic, polyfil and down
DimensionsOverall: 86 × 38 × 24 in. (218.4 × 96.5 × 61 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineGift of Noël Kurdi and Carrie Mackin 2023
Object number2023.35
In researching the history of indigo in the US and its connections to the African slave trade, I discovered that slave prisons were strategically placed in our nation's capital, not far from where I grew up and very near to the last stops on the Underground Railroad. Stargazer imagines the arduous journey of slaves and ancestors attempting to cross north to freedom and looking to the stars for guidance and prayer.
The North Star and the other stars in the asterism known as the "celestial gourd" (Big Dipper) are held sacred by many indigenous people from Africa to the Americas. These same stars guided explorers across the planet, as well las colonists and slave ships to these shores. The marks on Stargazer are prayers for freedom and symbols denoting the counting of days, and resemble tattoos or scars etched into our collective unconscious memory for all time. Stargazer was made as a reminder that we have all made wishes on the same stars with the hope that we, as a people, will honor each other and the arduous journeys of our ancestors.
On View
Not on view
early 20th Century
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Sandro Chia
