Personal Project
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gqKlKniB85c
"Indigo's Journey"
Site-Specific
Indigo-dyed fabric installed on trees and bushes
at Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve
"Grant’s Villa, the indigo plantation owned by Governor James Grant, was a 1,450-acre tract located approximately six miles northwest of St. Augustine. The tract was bounded east and south by the Guana River, west by the North River, and north by vacant land. Beginning in 1768, Grant’s enslaved Africans cleared six-hundred acres for indigo cultivation. Indigo weed was processed into dye at six sets of vats spread out among the fields. Structures at the plantation included two dwellings and a kitchen for the overseer and his assistants, stables for horses and other plantation work animals, a blacksmith shop, a large barn and indigo house, fowl and pigeon coops, and houses for the enslaved black men and women. In his memorial to the East Florida Claims Commission, James Grant said all of the structures were of wood-frame construction."
Source: Indigo Cultivation: Life at Governor James Grant's Villa Plantation, University of North Florida
I wanted to create a tribute to the history of Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve holds. I thought it would be interesting to see how placing fabrics indigo-dyed fabrics from today onto the land of what once was an indigo plantation would create a narrative. I think this narrative is up to interpretation for the viewer, but one important aspect is the memory of the slave labor that occurred on this land through indigo growth during the late 1700s. I also think that this comparison of the past and present is important to think about in terms of the meaning of the indigo plant and the Guana reserve
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