♪♪ Johnson-Cunningham: I think this exhibition reminds us that artwork can be a part of the public landscape and it doesn't only have to be within museums, tucked away within a brick and mortar, but out in the public.

Palmer: Public space -- it's everyone's, and it's always very contentious.

You can have somebody playing music on the corner and another person who's maybe sitting there and trying to have -- you know, read in silence.

And I think that's a part of the complexity but part, also, of the beauty of public space.

It's yours.

It's mine.

It's everyone's.

I'm Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham, and you are watching "On Display" on All Arts Network.

♪♪ ♪♪ Growing up in New York City, there is always an opportunity to happen upon artwork, whether it be visual art, performance art, whatever medium it has been.

But a lot of the artworks that are permanent fixtures in New York have been around, like, colonial figures and different monuments that we've seen people take issue with.

And so to have public art that reflects the past, the present, and also what we see for the future is also really important.

I am here at the City Hall Park to see Melvin Edwards' exhibition "Brighter Days."

So, City Hall Park is also the stage for many protests here in New York City, from Occupy City Hall to Black Lives Matter protests.

This site is very significant in many different ways, and this exhibition is a really great backdrop to what a lot of people are arguing for, right?

Which is freedom, access, and also connectivity and change in many ways.

This is a very special exhibition for Public Art Fund.

It's working with an artist who is immensely important, Melvin Edwards, bringing together abstract forms with a set of personal iconography.

And in this exhibition in particular, it was very special to bring together works from the 1970s all the way to the present, really focused in on the chain motif, the symbol that partly evokes the many metaphorical implications of change, partly as a tool of bondage or violence or oppression, but then also broken chains showing the work as manifestations of liberation or rupture.

But Mel is also quick to say, chain can have many other implications, not just sort of negative or ones that evoke violence or oppression, but as much, chains of connection, linkages between people, and so likewise, linkages that sometimes show generational connections.

Part of what I love about this vista is that this newly commissioned piece is framed with City Hall behind it, and the figure atop of its cupola has the scales of justice, you know, which are held by a thin chain.

So, thinking about, you know, Mel's work, chains of justice, connection, you know, Mel just put so much in the work.

And it really speaks to the aspirations of our culture, always.

I think him titling the exhibition "Brighter Days" is so telling, too, that it's not just about being stuck in that moment, but really building and growing and changing the framework of our country and maybe also of our democracy, as well, since we are here at the seat of our government in City Hall.

This piece is titled "The Promise," from 1984.

And he really did think about this work as a passageway, you know, of sorts.

And during the election for the mayoral primaries, everyone was using this as a backdrop.

So there's this great, great image of Maya Wiley and AOC with, you know, this behind it.

It was sort of very interesting.

This passage also being an opportunity for us to think about, you know, transformation...

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

...in a sense, also... What to live up to.

...I think is brilliant.

You know, the ideals of a citizen, of a country, or of a community that we have to live up to.

And maybe in a year or two, hopefully we've made progress on some of the issues that this artwork addresses.

And, you know, I'm sure new issues will come up, and hopefully I'm sure there'll be artwork that addresses those at that point.

♪♪ Palmer: Public Art Fund, which was founded in the 1970s by a woman named Doris C. Freedman, has always taken as its mission to bring some of the most important art from all around the world to the public of New York City for free, open access for everyone.

Especially during the pandemic, having exhibitions within public space became even much more critical because our museums were closed.

And what I learned today was that the Public Art Fund, their exhibition and their public art installations increased during the pandemic because there was such a need for it.

In general, people have been so thankful that they've had something to visit beyond themselves in this time.

If you saw an artwork that was on a bus shelter, you know, you could walk down the street, or if you wanted to make a little trip to a park and see something, you know, that everybody has, also, newfound love for their local parks or the parks in our city.

A thriving art scene is a sign of a healthy democracy.

Palmer: Part of what we were hoping to do with this exhibition was draw people's attention to artworks that Melvin has permanently on view throughout New York City.

It really shows the way that artworks can integrate into their communities and become touchstones for those communities, and Public Art Fund really feels that art is essential to a thriving democratic environment and to creating a space that is inclusive, welcoming for everyone, that has beauty and meaning and addresses important issues and ideas.

♪♪ So, I'm here at the African Burial Ground located in Manhattan.

I remember vividly the protests that happened when the site was discovered.

I was a little girl growing up here in New York City, and I remember, you know, seeing it in the news or coming down to the city and seeing it face-to-face.

And it was really incredible how much the community here in New York City and elsewhere really advocated for the excavation of the site and also the preservation of the site.

Brandini: So, the people who are buried at the African Burial Ground, we don't have their names.

We don't know their individual identities.

But the people who are buried at the African Burial Ground are the colony builders of New York City.

They were the ones who really built what would become Broadway.

They built the wall that would later give the name to Wall Street.

What happened in 1991 was they actually found the remains were intact.

So not only were individual remains found, but there was also artifacts with those remains, such as pieces of jewelry, clothing.

In 1991, when the first remains were found, it really brought the community together.

It brought community leaders here to come and speak about the enslaved Africans.

And it really brought a collective movement of people who were protecting and preserving the site.

And really, people were just angry that how can the federal government use taxpayers' money to disrespect the ancestors?

What happened then was you had basically a movement start where people were going to these meetings, calling out the federal government for this disrespect.

What we have over here, we have seven mounds, and under each mound is a crypt or a container, each container holding roughly 60 coffins.

And basically, during the rights of ancestral return, when the remains were brought back from Howard University, they were put back into the ground underneath these seven mounds.

The monument here was actually the winning design in a competition, and the winner was Rodney Léon and AARRIS Architects.

Basically, when they designed this monument, there's many features, each feature representing something different.

There's a lot of symbolism happening inside.

♪♪ Behind me, we do have what's a sankofa.

So, the sankofa resembles a heart.

The sankofa was actually believed to have been found on the lid of a coffin buried here at the African Burial Ground.

The meaning of sankofa, which is a West African symbol, an Adinkra symbol, is believed to mean, "Learn from the past to build for the future."

What can we do to take that information and bring it to the future?

So, as we're walking through the memorial, this is a journey.

So we're basically taking a journey from the physical world to the spiritual world.

As we walk down this ramp, we are getting closer to the ancestors.

Johnson-Cunningham: And so we have here this ancestral realm, in a sense, that we're walking into.

But then, also, we are moving into water, as well.

We can hear the sounds of water.

We can see water.

You know, and that, also, is a huge representation of this space, too.

Almost a meditative sense.

You don't really hear the sounds of the streets of New York.

This really is an escape from the city, a place of quietness, a place for contemplation, meditation, and prayer.

So it's very much an escape from the city.

♪♪ So, we're here in Manhattan.

When people think about slavery, they don't really think about New York.

They think about somewhere in the Deep South that happened, you know, so far away.

But knowing that it happened here in New York is incredibly important.

And, also, that there is now a site that serves as a memorial for both the free and enslaved Africans I think is incredibly remarkable.

Year after year, they celebrate this site with different ceremonies where there are speakers and libations, which is really, really important to continue to commemorate and remember this history.

I mean, the story of the African Burial Ground is a story on slavery and racial inequalities.

From 1600s through 1795, the African Burial Ground was a place where enslaved and freed Africans could gather, bury their loved ones, practice different traditions, different ceremony styles, and really come together in unity.

♪♪ What do you hope that people have a better understanding of when they leave this site?

The African Burial Ground has an incredible story, and it's just one of the many stories within New York City.

When I learned about this site, I just felt like there needs to be more attention on this site.

There needs to be more education about this site.

I learned a little bit about colonial history in school growing up in New York City, but I never took a field trip down here, never really talked about this site.

And this was in the news.

This was in the news since 1991, 2003 when the remains are reinterred, 2007 when the memorial is dedicated and Dr. Maya Angelou and others come and speak.

The museum opens in 2010.

So really, I just felt like there needs to be more education, more history shared with others.

I think it's so incredible as a New Yorker to kind of see this history being lifted and being celebrated, as well, and being acknowledged.

What are some people's reactions to the site?

Everyone reacts differently to the African Burial Ground.

Once people come into the site and learn its history, you have people who do come in and they start crying.

You have people who come in and start laughing because they just don't know how to feel, how to react.

I hope viewers of "On Display" will take away a better sense of appreciation for arts and cultural institutions, the research and all of the work that goes into the existence of these spaces that allow us to learn more in-depthly a range of different histories of culture and of experiences.

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