Unmonument Brooklyn: City Refuge

On August 8-10, 2024,  Black Reconstruction Collective presents Unmonument Brooklyn: City Refuge with Weeksville Heritage Center. This is the second iteration of the Unmonument traveling installation, an architectural project centering a nomadic sculpture conceived as an ‘exquisite corpse’ exercise, meant to refuse traditional ideas of monuments and inspire collective action.

Conceived as a means to reimagine possibilities for the emancipation for the African Diaspora, Unmonument memorializes the Liberators of Black America – Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Toussaint Louverture – and the Self-Liberated communities found throughout the Americas – Ambrosio, Fort Mose, The Great Dismal Swamp. Challenging the concept of monuments and their inherent myths of power, permanence, and collective experience, the Unmonument sculpture appears almost as a piece of scaffolding or construction equipment. Flexible, unprecious, and movable, the sculpture is inherently and intentionally unspectacular – it is an infrastructure for recognizing the community that surrounds it, a beacon to celebrate, to gather, and to come together.

Thursday August 8th: Sacred Haven / 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm 

Film Screening and Intimate Conversation on Oasis and Self Liberated Communities

Friday August 9th: Aural Meadow / 12:00pm – 4:00pm

Open source library / Sound Odyssey

“Read on the Grass While Meditating on Black Self Determinism” w/ Black Discourse

3:30 – 4:30 pm Sunset Sound bath with Kia Islam

Saturday August 10th: Exodus Oasis Party / 4:00 pm -7:00 pm 

Sunset Celebration w/ sets by DJ Kendollaz , DJ DadaCozmic , DJ Elise 

Weeksville Green Farmers & Community Market will be open from 12:00pm – 5:00pm

The event includes the launch of Full Duration: Ceremonial Procession, an augmented reality sculptural experience by BRC founder Olalekan Jeyifous. The installation is the fourth iteration of Olalekan Jeyifous’ “Protopian” Retrofuturist series exploring the potential of harmonizing reconstituted technological detritus with ecological stewardship through narratives of imagined fugitive Black communities throughout Brooklyn, the Hudson Valley, and Upstate New York. Each iteration of this collection of works (which has been on view in various iterations at MoMA, PioneerWorks, and Art Omi) is a reflection on resistance, resilience, and restoration, drawing inspiration from the Maroon communities of the Americas and the Caribbean.