Healing Art - KSU Prof's art helps heal racial wounds
Two questions posed by a mentor have guided the artistic career of Ayokunle Odeleye, a KSU art…
Georgia (Jul 27, 2009) —
Two questions posed by a mentor have guided the artistic career of Ayokunle Odeleye,
a KSU art professor and sculptor who has created more than two dozen works of public
art over the past 19 years.
Sculptor and former Howard University professor Ed Love asked him: “What is your
obligation and responsibility to your people and your work? How is [your art] important
to anyone but you?”
A memorial park and sculpture Odeleye and his partners conceived to help the residents
of Wilmington, N.C., heal wounds from the racial violence that erupted there in 1898
answers both questions powerfully and affirmatively.
While the impressive sculpture acknowledges a dark day when an angry white mob
killed more than 20 blacks, drove hundreds more from their homes, burned the African-American
newspaper office and overthrew the city government, the memorial reflects the forces
of reconciliation that exist in Wilmington today.
Odeleye, who specializes in creating works of public art in metal and wood, brought
his enormous talent and the sensibilities of his African and Southern ancestry to
bear on delivering what the memorial planners wanted: a public space where residents
could remember, contemplate and heal together so the town can move forward.
“I had dreams and people were talking to me in my sleep,” Odeleye said, describing
why he stuck with the project despite the more than 10 years between proposal and
project completion. “These were my ancestors.”
Together with architects Jon and Marianne Weinberg-Benson, Odeleye designed an
environmental sculpture on a 330-by-300-foot triangular track of land that serves
as the gateway from Interstate 40 to a newly developed area of downtown Wilmington.
The design, which they submitted in 1998, was chosen from among 66 proposals. Land
clearances, fund raising, rescaling the project and negotiating with public authorities
delayed the project’s completion.
Dedicated last November, a few days shy of the 110th anniversary of the uprising,
the 1898 Memorial Park Odeleye’s team created is comprised of six 16-foot sculptures
that represent paddles – each weighing 1,000 pounds – made of carbon steel tubing,
stainless steel bar bracing and sheet bronze skin. The memorial also includes two
arched sculptural structures designed to hold the curved bronze plates with engraved
inscriptions recounting the historical event.
According to Odeleye, the paddles, which he fabricated in his Stone Mountain,
Ga., studio and transported with an assistant on a special open-bed trailer nearly
400 miles, symbolize the presence of water as a component of the spiritual belief
system of black Americans in the 1800s.
“In many African traditions, water is believed to be a medium for the transition
between the worlds of the living and the dead,” he explained. “The use of paddle imagery
memorializes not only the destruction of a community, but the collective coexistence
of the two races at a unique time in history.”
Odeleye said he spent countless hours examining the proposed site, trolling Wilmington’s
archives and talking to descendants of riot victims and perpetrators alike. “I walked
in those communities where people still live and heard stories suggesting there were
far more than 20 people killed,” he said. “People said the river ran red for days.”
The crux of the uprising, Odeleye concluded, was the refusal by a group of white
residents to accept blacks serving in government, a development made possible by a
coalition of the town’s progressive white leaders and its thriving black middle class.
Just before the November 1898 elections, white Democrats conducted a propaganda campaign
against moderate whites and blacks that escalated into a violent rampage. It took
an order from the governor to the Wilmington Light Infantry and the Naval Reserves
to restore peace.
“It was the only coup d’etat in American history, and it created a domino effect
for the creation of Jim Crow legislation throughout the South,” said Odeleye, for
whom the historical significance of the project sets it apart from others he has done.
The 1898 Memorial Park has been very well received by all races, said Bertha Todd,
co-chair of the 1998 Centennial Committee, whose work led to the creation of the Memorial
Foundation that raised funds for the project.
“It wasn’t easy convincing the descendants of some of the perpetrators that this
was not about finger-pointing, but a chance for the community to confront its past,”
Todd said. “People had whispered about the incident for 100 years, but never really
talked about it. It took a whole lot of one-on-one conversations to convince people
that this was our chance to come together to heal.”
To learn more about professor Odeleye, visit
http://www.kennesaw.edu/visual_arts/Personnel/OdeleyeA/index.shtml To view more of his sculptures and public art projects, visit
http://www.odeleyesculpturestudios.com/
A leader in innovative teaching and learning, Kennesaw State University offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees to its nearly 43,000 students. With 11 colleges on two metro Atlanta campuses, Kennesaw State is a member of the University System of Georgia. The university’s vibrant campus culture, diverse population, strong global ties and entrepreneurial spirit draw students from throughout the country and the world. Kennesaw State is a Carnegie-designated doctoral research institution (R2), placing it among an elite group of only 6 percent of U.S. colleges and universities with an R1 or R2 status. For more information, visit kennesaw.edu.
