Field 003

2020

Multimedia on Paper

30in x 22in

BLACKLINING SERIES 

Thinking about the redlining of major cities from 1935 to 1974. Thinking about the architect today, as he redlines corrections on a set of construction documents. Thinking about the Chicago redline train, heading north-bound past 35th street.

This work explores the social implications of infrastructural choices made yesterday, today, and tomorrow, in Chicago, New York, and around the world. The choices made by drawing lines on a map, and splitting communities in two with a pen. Those red lines become solid, mass, concrete, yet more invisible.

These works aim to render those lines visible, with Chicago’s building footprints, streets, waterways. Chicago’s infrustructure is deconstructed and reassembled. Through these black lines, the works play out the scenarios that shape our world today. Making the boundaries that are unseen, visible.

The feeling, of crossing these invisible lines. The spacial breach of territory, that is omnipresent in the African American experience. The understanding that these lines exist because of the deep histories of infrastructural choices made in the past, and scar the present.

Roland Knowlden