Erin Kendrick
Jacksonville, FL
Erin Kendrick is a visual artist and arts educator from Jacksonville, Florida. She maintains a studio at CoRK Arts District in Jacksonville, Florida.
MessageCollection: MLK Blvd.
Redlining's profound impact on poverty-stricken neighborhoods is frequently overshadowed, despite the evident visual markers of its devastating consequences, such as blight, abandoned homes, and neglected schools. Today, these low-income black communities and their resilient residents navigate a contrasting reality—a juxtaposition of trauma and triumph, scarcity and resourcefulness, individualism, and communal unity. These homes, featured within my collection "MLK Blvd," symbolize the intricate layers of this dichotomy. Each one stands as a structural effigy, bearing witness to the legacy of redlining—some left abandoned and forsaken, while others stand restored and reborn. These powerful symbols encapsulate the resilience and struggles of communities still striving for equitable opportunities and a brighter future.
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The words and music of Bobbie O'Connor's Screams Echo, a story about the generational trauma caused by the history and prevalence of lynching, inspired me to create a new body of work about the spaces left behind when a black male is murdered unjustly. In O'Connor's story the fictional lynching of Charlie, a young boy whose unchecked affection irrevocably led to his death, the economic lynching of Daddy who was denied an opportunity to create a better life for his family, and the recollection of the real, modern-day lynching of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who simply wanted to be left alone, remind me that in this country...life is about access. It reminds me of the lengths to which those who have even the smallest perception of power will submit to, to limit, or eliminate African-Americans access to progress. It is an unnerving and relentless practice that has affected the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual well-being of not only the men in this story but also the women that they leave behind. These women, mothers, grandmothers, and daughters, continue to exist in the spaces that these men once occupied.
This body of work highlights the stories of the women of Screams Echo - Granny, and her granddaughters Rita, Frances, and Simone, each living with the physical and emotional trauma passed on through generations of witnessing these physical and psychological lynchings of the men they know and love.
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