Women’s Rights National Historical Park presents the solo exhibition The Other Side – Charles, Caesar, Harry, Sam, Pompey, Lon, and Isaac, a series of photographs by New York artist Xiomáro. The 12 large prints will be on view from July 1 to August 31, 2019 at the Visitor Center’s gallery on the second floor.
The Other Side is the first artistic photographic collection to examine the slave cemetery at the William Floyd Estate in New York. The estate is part of the National Park Service, which commissioned Xiomaro to create the images. William Floyd (1734-1821), is a founding father and general who served under George Washington. Floyd represented New York in the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where he set his signature to the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.
The photographs on exhibition show the undated wooden crosses of the little-known slave cemetery on Floyd’s estate. The crosses bear generic slave names and are set apart on the other side of a fence from the elaborate individualized stones of the Floyd family cemetery. The exhibition is intended by the artist to serve as spiritual memorials to the laborers—both enslaved persons and paid servants of color—who worked on Floyd’s plantation. The photographs have a wistful, dreamy quality that evokes a sense of melancholy and introspection.
In addition, the crosses, put in place sometime in the 1870s, represent in part the Floyd family’s evolution from slave ownership to active military service in the Union army during the American Civil War. The photographs were first exhibited at African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City.
Xiomaro (SEE-oh-MAH-ro) is an internationally-recognized artist and speaker whose photography of the National Parks has been covered by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and CBS Eyewitness News. His work has been widely exhibited at venues such as Harvard University and New York City’s Fraunces Tavern Museum. He is the author of Weir Farm National Historic Site (Arcadia Publishing)—with a foreword by Senator Joe Lieberman—that tells the story of Julian Alden Weir, a leading innovator of American Impressionist painting whose farm will be commemorated on the US quarter in 2020.
The gallery at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center is located on the second floor of 136 Fall Street, Seneca Falls, New York 13148, and the exhibition runs from July 1 to August 31, 2019. For visiting hours call (315) 568-0024. A free print and limited edition exhibit ebook can be downloaded at www.xiomaro.com.
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