This page is referenced by:

• 1 media/SS36412_36412_38054396.jpg 2021-04-22T21:20:17+00:00 Continuation Collage 11 Gillianne Nugent plain 2021-05-13T03:42:00+00:00

  By Gillianne Nugent

  The object that I selected from the Watkinson is a photograph by the photographer Danny Lyon (1942). The image was taken in Nashville in the year 1962 but was printed in 2016 with gelatin silver print processing. Titled “Outside, Lester MacKinney, Bernice Reagon, and John O'Neal wait to get in [a Nashville Tic Toc restaurant]”, this digital copy belongs to Trinity’s photography and art collection.

  I chose the original image, because it caught my eye in the sea of colorful, Hatian paintings in the Watkinson collection. The simplicity and candidness of the photo contrasts the bright sign advertising 10¢ hamburgers. The aesthetic of the 60s has also always grabbed my attention, but it is extremely important to also remember the flaws of the time period. Namely the racial discrimination, which is pictured here, as well as the inequality that it includes. I think a lot, when looking at the photo, about how history repeats itself- or in this case how the original issues that called for a Civil Rights movement were never solved. I titled my response “Continuation” instead of my original thought “Repetition,” for this reason. The three or four black patrons pictured are waiting outside, while white women, maybe waitresses, peer at them through the front window from inside. This simple photo is quite symbolic of the systematic problems of the time, where African Americans were put last and given segregational treatment. The Civil Rights act had not yet been passed at the time of this photo, so it was not illegal in Tennessee to mistreat these customers this way.

  Especially considering the events of this summer, it is very important to reflect on what happened in our Country (focusing here on the segregation and racism of the 50s and 60s) and what is still happening to this day.My transformed object is a collage that I created using the image I selected from the Watkinson as well as an article from the April fools section of the Trinity Tripod newspaper. I was originally looking for a serious article about the hate crime that occurred on campus last week, but what I found was a satirical version that shamelessly calls out Trinity’s administration for their lack of action against racism on campus. The foreground contains images of the backs of the two white men, originally pictured outside of the restaurant, looking at the black patrons waiting outside. It is reminiscent of some kind of exhibition, so I had the idea to keep these men to the front still looking back. I chose to place the African Americans from the original picture behind the columns of the article to represent the way in which they are always placed behind the white people, in the 60s as well as on Trinity’s campus. They ended up almost looking like they were in the shadows by force. I added some blobby figures around the negative space to represent that many people experience discrimination in America, but they are rarely paid attention to. Unfortunately, many black people are referred to as just that, “black people” as a group; really, they are being stripped of their voices, individual identities and ultimately their rights as citizens of the United States.

  Finally, I made the decision to burn parts of the collage to represent the damage systematic racism causes. Ideally, it would have caused holes in the underlying paper to show that we, as a society cannot be complete when a large part of our people are mistreated and discriminated against. As someone with a fair amount of privilege, I recognize that it is my responsibility to do everything I can to help end the systematic racism in our country. Especially considering the banana incident that recently took place, I can no longer be a bystander to injustice. I hope this art piece achieved that. Either way, the original photograph is an important piece to the Watkinson, and I believe it would be well suited for a display.