WRITTEN
in the Body
We of brief lives forget, but the timeless land remembers.
VIDEO about Written in the Body project
Unearthing memory
In 1973, as part of the first ever urban soil survey in Washington DC, soil scientists collected several soil monoliths in Kenilworth Park, the former site of the city dump, which was burned openly for 25 years on the eastern bank of the Anacostia River, in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
For nearly 50 years the monoliths lay quietly in the soil science building of the University of Maryland, and a National Park Service storage facility. In their resting places they held a record of deeds of humanity that led to the death of a child and the despoiling of a river.
They held the memory of so many things we need to know to find our way toward a more healthy, equitable and peaceful society in Washington DC, the United States of America, planet Earth.
The story is a path
This is a project of inquiry, a question asked of the land and those who lived upon it as history was unfolding. This project is a listening.
It will employ oral history, portraiture, archival research, sculpture and soil science, with the aim of walking back in time into the story of the Kenilworth dump.
I seek answers to questions that have shadowed me for more than a decade, since I first learned of the tragedy that unfolded here in 1968. How did it happen? How did we come to be a society that could justify waste and toxins and fire unleashed upon national park land and upon the water, and upon a community of people who could not escape it? How did the people and land and water weather this period, from 1942 - 1968? Are we still this society? Are we still so broken? Can we work together towards healing the wounds that are written in the body?
It is on all of us to grapple with our history, to try to understand how we came to be these people, this society, holding these wounds. It is on all of us to try and find some healing path and to share it as best we can.
This story is a path. Come walk with me, let’s see what we can find.
Walter McDowney, in Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, shared his story of growing up on the margins of the Kenilworth Dump.
Project Slideshow Presentation - Fall 2024
In September 2024 I presented on this project to the Anacostia Park and Community Collaborative, led by Brenda Richardson. Please take a look and let me know your thoughts on the project.
If you’d like to follow or get involved in this project, please send me a note.
Research for this project has been made possible with support from Wherewithal Grants, a regional regranting program of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts administered by Washington Project for the Arts.’
