OPEN LETTER TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

 

Dear Mr. Nyerges, 

I am writing to briefly outline concerns I have regarding the Reimagining Monument Avenue Initiative.

I would like to put forth several proposals concerning Marcus-David Peters Circle that I believe have wide community support.

I am sending a very similar email to the Governor's Office.  I will also be starting a petition, not as a hostile gesture, but to provide you with concrete evidence of widespread community support for the action items listed below.

WHO AM I: I am a Museum District resident and a Richmond Public Schools instrumental music teacher. I am the Black cellist who appeared in local and national media using music, body politics, and performance art as forms of protest. Since last June, I have witnessed and become involved in the local uprising against the extrajudicial executions of U.S. citizens, an atrocity that disproportionately falls upon Black, Brown, and indigenous peoples.

Eventually, I became de facto "curator" of the memorials at Marcus-David Peters Circle.

I did not create the memorials, but I know who did. Those individuals have elected to remain anonymous, but that may change later.  I do know that the work to create these memorials, to generate the idea and to implement it, was emotionally and spiritually exhausting to those involved. They will deserve recognition.

As the memorials were stolen, vandalized, desecrated, and degraded by exposure to the elements, I took on the task of re-installing them (proofreading, fact-checking, re-printing, and laminating, and installing). I have access to all of the old files and have created many more memorials.

I have had to create more because the extrajudicial executions won't stop. Every day I wake up and hope that there is no need to create any more. And yet, just over two week ago (January 9), Black people were re-traumatized by the slaughter of 18 year old Xzavier Hill, who had his hands up when Virginia law enforcement executed him.

Tending to the memorials was a grassroots effort. Over the last few months, many community members - of all ages, ethnicities, races, and religions - stepped in to clean, tidy, decorate, and maintain the memorials.

We do not consider these items state property. We recognize that this is the standard in museum work - for example, when items are left at the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C., those items become property of the U.S National Park Service. 

Quite frankly, we do not trust the motives behind collecting items at MDP and stashing them away in archival locations. Hiding them in a basement or cold storage is in direct opposition to the reasons why people left those items.

For eight months many of us have wondered - often aloud - when would representatives of the museums come to Marcus-David Peters Circle, speak to local protest leaders and community organizers, and ask, 

"How would you like us to support the work you are doing here?"

Over the last few months, I became increasingly perplexed at the silence.

And I became concerned that our local museums do not know who to reach out to - or how - in order to tell the story of this uprising in all its complexity. 

I have concerns that the some of very same individuals who for years fought to keep statues to traitors, human traffickers, and torturers in pride of place may be those who are now paying for the Reimagining Monument Avenue Initiative. It is galling that not only will wealthy donors will be able to write off this exercise on their taxes, their contribution buys them decision-making power over the substance and content of the Initiative.

We believe that the hundreds - or even thousands - of community members who painted, reported, projected, performed, marched, were teargassed, were shot at point blank range by rubber bullets, were beaten, and were arrested should have as much say as wealthy donors and members of academia who were completely absent and dismayingly silent during the uprising.

Here are the outcomes that I, personally, am invested in:

1. THE MEMORIALS STAY. The community would like the memorials to become permanent, and we would like a community-approved Black curator appointed to ensure that the story of over-policing and disproportionate extrajudicial executions remains at the center of the narrative this space tells. 

We are less interested in the concerns that might be at the forefront of museum curators' minds (preservation, "fossilizing" a space to trap it in the past like an insect in amber).

We are more interested in a space that continues to evolve as an active community-led space, the purpose of which is to protest extrajudicial police executions. 

Any efforts to remove signs and symbols which interrogate and speak out against extrajudicial executions from the center of the narrative are not acceptable.

We feel - strongly - that the space has already been reimagined, by thousands of community members. 

Marcus-David Peters Circle has been transfigured into, essentially, an open air museum and memorial. What makes this so culturally significant is that this "museum" was created and nurtured by the blood, sweat, and tears of thousands of community members, not wealthy donors.

The sacrifice of young protestors who were beaten, teargassed, brutalized, and threatened with deadly force is priceless and cannot be quantified.

2. THE GARDENS STAY and remain community gardens devoted to "food justice." The gardens were and remain a significant part of the protest. Going forward, community members may plant here, and food may be harvested.  There is much to be said on this topic, and the voices of the gardeners must be included.

3. THE COMMUNITY-AWARDED PLACE NAME "MARCUS-DAVID PETERS CIRCLE" must be officially recognized, and the signage, which is an important artifact from the 2020 uprising, must stay.

I am happy to describe at length the history of the community-inspired renaming, the signage, and how the current sign came to be.

3a. MARCUS-DAVID PETERS CIRCLE must remain an open air park in which community members can continue to do the things they have enjoyed doing for the last eight months - playing basketball (also a form of protest), grilling, making music, collaborating on art, and re-imagining community safety.

This is critical. For one hundred and thirty one years, Black, Brown, Jewish, and indigenous peoples have been forced to regard the looming, obnoxious presence of a totem to white supremacy, torture, human trafficking, and rape.  Black military veterans have been forced to drive past the celebration of a man who allowed his troops to execute Black soldiers.

The protestors put Robert E. Lee on trial, and in our opinion, the jury is still out. As long as extrajudicial executions continue, as long as the UDC remains headquartered in Richmond, as long as racist practices flourish, and the over-policing of protestors continues - the "trial" continues.

For eight months, a sense of freedom was unleashed. It is critical that this energy not be quashed, co-opted, commercialized, and taken over by the wealthy doyens of this city.

4. LOCAL ARTISTS ARE CENTERED, CELEBRATED, SUPPORTED - We are not excited about the notion of international artists swooping in to lay claim to this space. It smacks of colonization. Please consider the optics.  For months, ordinary people have been laboring, have been brutalized, have implemented body politics and put their health and safety on the line and surprisingly, this work has been recognized by international media outlets. The work of ordinary citizen-artists has moved the needle of public opinion; has changed how some people voted; has altered the landscape of Richmond politics - perhaps forever; and has brought countless undecided people over to the side of the Black Lives Matter movement.

We have brilliant artists right here in Richmond, and we expect their work, their voices, their vision to be centered.

Personally, I would like to see MDP Circle evolve into a rotating gallery of temporally-constrained, site-specific three-dimensional work, as well as an open air gallery of art and photography reflecting on the 2020 uprising. Spontaneous music and dance performances should continue. 

We do not want the Commonwealth to require permitting that will quash spontaneous expressions of joy and freedom. 

We know that wealthy white residents don't "like" the basketball hoops.  That is why they must stay.

We know that wealthy white residents don't "like" being forced to look at Black bodies wearing culturally symbolic clothing whilst expressing their opinions, enjoying sunshine, and relaxing, when they are ordinarily confined to "Black" neighborhoods.  That is why they (the protestors) must stay.

In short, we do not want this space sanitized for the comfort of the wealthy and those who prefer the status quo.

We are curious to hear how a museum can operate in this space. Your goals are preservation, while our goals are progress. Can these two modalities overlap? You will want artifacts to remain unchanged so that they can be catalogued and have monetary value assigned to them. We celebrate change. We love how the plinth changes almost daily. We love that we cannot predict what artists or musicians will appear and spontaneously make music or install 2-D artworks.

Obviously, an institution of your size, caliber, and capitalization has the power to do so much.

You have a rare, unique opportunity to "reimagine" what a curator is; what an "exhibit" is; what a museum is.  

Thank you so much for your time and for all you do to provide our region with a world-class art museum. I will send you a link to my petition as soon as I launch it.

Beth Almore