Silence

The installation in Center Church on the Green, New Haven, CT, had three components: contemporary photographs of African-American members of the Dixwell Avenue Church, representing their ancestors whose images were placed on pedestals and ‘seated’ in the pews of the main floor; a series of granite ‘memorial’ plaques etched with the biography of the original church members of African descent; and a reading of an address given by Reverend James Wright to the Anti-Slavery Society in 1834. The granite plaques, which were part historical record and part appropriated text from other memorial markers in the church, served as an acknowledgement to the African members of the Center Church.