Queen City A Conversation

QUEEN CITY

Queen City was a Black, self-sustaining neighborhood that thrived for 40 years before it was demolished in 1941 to make way for the Pentagon and related road construction. This resulted in 903 individuals losing their homes with almost no notice, resulting in economic hardship and a shrinking housing stock. Queen City is a 35’ tall, well-like tower structure in Metropolitan Park, Arlington, VA that peers over trees and architecture to mark the site of what existed before.

Queen City aims to invite the public and to relearn the erased history of the historically Black neighborhood. As part of the project, Durrett commissioned 17 Black ceramists from Washington DC, California, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Georgia, Connecticut, Missouri, Florida, Minnesota, and Michigan to make 903 ceramic teardrop vessels that signify the 903 individuals of Queen City who were displaced. In building this community, Durrett encourages the legacy of Queen City to live on in spite of its erasure.

ABOUT FOR FREEDOMS

For Freedoms is an artist-led organization that models and increases creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. We work with artists and organizations to center the voices of artists in public discourse, expand what participation in a democracy looks like, and reshape conversations about politics.

ABOUT NEKISHA DURRETT

Nekisha Durrett is a mixed-media artist who employs the visual language of mass media to bring forward histories that objects, places, and words embody, but are not often celebrated. Her expansive practice includes public art, social practice, installation, painting, sculpture and design. Through deep research and material investigation, Durrett finds historical traces in the present that are filled with stories easily overlooked. Her work contemplates biases and the unreliability of memory, as information is filtered over time. Durrett illuminates individual and collective histories of Black life and imagination, addressing her own younger self and the stories she wished she had learned. She is the Howard University Social Justice Consortium Artist-in-Residence, and a finalist for the 2023 Janet and Walter Sondheim Art Prize. Durrett has recently been awarded the commission for the ARCH Project at Bryn Mawr College in partnership with Monument Lab. www.nekishadurrett.com

ARLINGTON PUBLIC ART

Arlington Public Art is a program of Arlington Cultural Affairs, a division of Arlington Economic Development (AED) that delivers public activities and programs as Arlington Arts. Our mission is to create, support, and promote the arts, connecting artists and community to reflect the diversity of Arlington. We do this by providing material support to artists and arts organizations in the form of grants, facilities, and technical resources; integrating award-winning public art into our built environment; and presenting high quality performing, literary, visual, and new media programs across the County.