Carnovsky Design Duo

In the Summer of 2019, I brought an XL sized luggage of books in Spanish from Spain to NYC for my elementary school students. (Believe it or not, books are still very much regional in their availability, and you cannot get it all on Amazon!) One of them was "Iluminaturaleza," an interactive book with images created by the Carnovsky Design Duo (Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla). I was fascinated by the way the layers of the images revealed themselves with the different gel filters, and began imagining the layers of New York City in the same way. It is thanks to Carnovsky's innovative book that I began exploring layering photographic images in cyan, magenta and yellow.

The City We Became - N.K. Jemisin

As an avid Sci-Fi head, N.K. Jemisin is one of my all time favorite authors. When I read "The City We Became," it amplified my senses tuning in to what the "inanimate" elements of the city have to say, the stories that they hold, and what the "soul" of the city thinks/feels towards the forces of gentrification, white supremacy and colonization. I found it fascinating when N.K. Jemisin said in an interview that she doesn't visualize the the things that happen in her books, because that's just not how her brain works. As someone who IS very visual, I struggled in certain moments of the series, to visualize these complex metaphysical moments of the city coming alive (there are limitations to the visual plane!). The use of these layered images has been a way for me to visually reach toward the thoughts and feelings that the series provokes for me.

adrift: the bayou project - Sadah Espii Proctor

Sadah Espii Proctor is a sound designer, new media artist and dramaturg. In her live, digital and virtual storytelling, she incorporates soundscape composition, poetic text, spatial design, and interactivity. She explores these mediums through the lens of Afrofuturism/AfroSurrealism/Black Quantum Futurism, diasporic futurisms, ethnographic surrealism, cyberpunk, and magical realism.

My wife Carolina and I know Espii as fellow Batalá New York band members, and were so excited for her April 26–May 8, 2024 social sculpture project at Hearst Plaza in Lincoln Center, "adrift: the bayou project." We were blown away. Haint blue door frames throughout the plaza were portals to explore augmented reality historical documents, letters and stories (recorded and written). From the past to the present, there was a through-line of family separation, loss and reunion.

When we went to see Espii's installation, I was at the beginning stages of creating my images dedicated to Seneca Village. Espii's work was deeply inspiring, both in it's interactive form and in it's content.

Located in New York City from 82nd to 89th Street on the Upper West Side of Central Park, the Seneca Village site was home to a thriving middle-class Black community with ⅓ Irish and German immigrants, from 1825 to 1856. Historian Cynthia Copeland describes the beginnings of Seneca Village as follows:

"In 1825, a 25-year-old African American shoe shiner named Andrew Williams purchased land—three lots for $125—in the middle of Manhattan, two years before slavery was abolished in New York. More free Black Americans followed, fleeing the disease and discrimination of downtown, and together they created a thriving settlement of their own, known as Seneca Village."

By 1856, this Black community included three churches, two schools and a population of over 250 people. Land ownership was of particular importance because, at the time, Black men could vote if they held property valued at $250 or more.

Until recently, the history of Seneca Village was obscured by grossly inaccurate narratives used to justify the destruction of the community to build Central Park. The land was seized through eminent domain and residents were forced to leave after receiving undervalued compensation for their property. At the time, they were disparaged as “squatters” and the important fact that there were landowners was omitted from newspapers. These efforts to erase Seneca Village’s history were so effective that tracing descendants of its families has proven challenging.

Today, thanks to the work of historians such as Cynthia Copeland, Nan Rothschild, and Diana Wall, we have a clearer understanding of Seneca Village. Documents housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem include the Seneca Village census, while a 2011 archaeological dig at the site, led by Diana Wall and Nan Rothschild, unearthed artifacts such as a child’s shoe, buttons, and pieces of pottery. Archaeological investigations also suggest the presence of grave shafts, basement walls and floors, and cesspits, further underscoring the enduring physical connection to this historic community.

In 2019, the first descendant of Seneca Village was identified: Ariel Williams, the great-great-great-great (4th generation) granddaughter of Andrew Williams. Her discovery was made by Celedonia (Cal) Jones (1930–2023). Ariel shared in an interview how her ancestor, after negotiating up the value of his Seneca Village home—although still a far cry from what he asked for—relocated to the Newtown neighborhood of Queens, now known as Elmhurst, where he purchased a home. Andrew Williams invested in his descendants' education, fostering a family of musicians and preserving traditions that reflect their heritage. The family continues a tradition of naming sons Andrew Williams and women with names starting with "A," as a form of family pride and connection to their roots.

Today, Central Park honors Seneca Village with plaques at key locations. Originally intended as a temporary exhibit, these plaques thankfully remain, ensuring that the story of Seneca Village is not forgotten.

The Welikia Project is a fantastic resource that allows you to explore Manhattan pre-1609. So before Seneca Village, and way before Dutch settlers colonized what is now New York City, what did the Lenape see in that same place, for thousands of years? Here is a list of plants from the Welikia project, which guided my choices for the yellow (seen through a blue filter) layers of the Seneca Village images.

I was also interested in where the nearby Lenape communities were, to further imagine this layer in time. The nearest recorded community was at present day 98th Street and Park Avenue, known to europeans as Reckgawawanc Lenape, in reference to the leader. Also close by to this site, is the main Lenape path along Manhattan island.

The photos of the red maple trees was taken at Staten Island's Clay Pit Ponds Reserve, chosen due to the overlap of plant species listed in the Welikia Project's Manhattan pre-1609 ecosystem database (Welikia Project).

As an artist, one of the challenges of this photography project is balancing artistic inspiration, historical accuracy, and working with currently existing structures.

In House Forest, the photo representing a Seneca Village home exterior was taken in Historic Richmondtown, Staten Island. While this house is ~35 years older than the earliest Seneca Village homes, cross-referencing with 1830s Black-owned homes in Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn, I found that the windows, roof, and chimneys of Staten Island's 3747 Richmond Rd were similar to Weeksville's 1702-1704 Bergen Street. Of note is that many of the homes in Seneca Village were two stories, along with single-story homes. A 14-minute drive from Historic Richmondtown is Staten Island's Sandy Ground, "the oldest continuously inhabited free Black settlement in the United States. Sandy Ground is a place of great historical significance. Founded in the early 19th Century, the community arose from a settlement of free Blacks from New York, Maryland & Delaware. By harvesting oysters and farming, this fledgling community was able to thrive and became a safe haven on the Underground Railroad. Today, Sandy Ground is home to 10 families that are descendants of original settlers." - Sandy Ground Historical Society. Sandy Ground was founded in 1833, and Seneca Village was founded in 1825. Traveling to Staten Island, as a New Yorker from Manhattan, and continuously encountering all of this history has been a very important experience for me. We (from Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens) tend to discard Staten Island as "not really New York"—but the more I learn, the more I wonder if Staten Island holds the keys to understanding who New York really is.

The magenta layer of Seneca Village: Fruit Bowl is a photo taken at the kitchen of the New York City's Tenement Museum newest tour - "A Union of Hope: 1869" This exhibit recreates the home of a Black family, Rachel and Joseph Moore's family, in the year 1869. The Moores lived in a Tenement in Soho, a 20 minute walk away from the Tenement Museum. Up until this exhibit, the Tenement Museum had re-created homes of people that physically lived in 97 Orchard Street, the site of the Tenement Museum. The fact that there was no record of a Black family living at 97 Orchard Street, located a historically Jewish, Irish and German neighborhood, meant that a museum representing the New York City tenement history had to get creative to best represent Tenement history in NYC. This reflects a larger reality; stories that are harder to find, are all that more important to tell. In the same vein, the photo of the kitchen in Seneca Village: Fruit Bowl is technically a representation of 13 years after the existence of Seneca Village, and in a tenement, not a home, and probably less financially stable than Seneca Village Black families. However, as I looked at the kitchen table with the fruit bowl, the interior window and curtains, I also saw a Seneca Village kitchen. I saw my own fruit bowl, growing up. I saw a home.