She made up her mind to get free (2023)
Excerpt from “Harriet Tubman,” by Newark-based poet Mia X
Danielle Scott, Kelley Prevard and Shoshanna Weinberger
Liberation is defined by the act of setting someone free from imprisonment, slavery, or oppression—it is a release. Since the beginning of time, Womanhood has presented an intersectional battle for liberation, tackling a collision of factors including body autonomy, economic oppression, cultural subordination, and political marginalization.
Art and storytelling have long played important roles in Newark’s liberation movements, from homemade placards to the powerful words of local poets to monuments like Nina Cooke John’s “Shadow of A Face.” Centered in Tubman Square, the monument features an audio installation from Audible that shares the story of Newark’s role—past and present—in emancipation.
Phase three of the Newark Artist Collaboration includes a multi-site public art activation that wraps Tubman Square and explores multiple intersectional interpretations of femme freedom, inspired by or incorporating the power of words with impactful visuals.
Danielle Scott
1 Washington Pl (at Broad St)
Young, Gifted, and Black
In 1972, Gladys Barker Grauer started the first Newark art gallery, on Bergen Avenue, dedicated to women artists of color. Called “Black Women’s Visual Perspective,” the gallery was a space for women and girls, mothers, and educators to focus on their practice and find support; to, as Ms. Barker encouraged, “do both — do all things.”
These collages honor seven women who have each played an instrumental role in building this space and the Newark arts community, including Ms. Barker. In order, they are:
Gladys Barker Grauer, “Mother of Newark Arts,” who founded Black Women’s Visual Perspective.
Camille Josephine Billops, sculptor, filmmaker, archivist, print-maker, and Rutgers-University Newark art professor.
Victoria “Viki” La Beaux Clark Craig, a widely respected educator and the founder/executive director of Art in the Atrium, Inc.
Nette Forné Thomas, a Newark educator and administrator for 36 years, whose art explores women’s roles and societal status.
Margaret Slade Kelley, an acclaimed painter and the first Black artist commissioned by the State of New Jersey to position artwork on public buildings.
Eleta J. Caldwell, who was a graduate—and later, principal—of Arts High School, and who devoted her life to mentoring young Newark artists.
Bisa Washington, a sculptor, printmaker, and writer whose work explored her identity as an African-American woman.
Kelley Prevard
559 Broad St (at Washington Pl)
Breaking Chains, Embracing Stars
Three generations of women, representing the past, present, and future, embrace in a star-filled archway as if in a portal to another dimension—one in which all women are empowered. Above shines the North Star, which Harriet Tubman used to liberate herself and many others.
In the background, patterns represent interconnectedness, with the gingko leaf symbolizing the remembrance of women’s contributions throughout history. In the second panel, below Harriet Tubman’s quote, a hawk emerges from the shadows, a symbol of freedom, strength, and power.
Shoshanna Weinberger
500 Broad St (at Bridge St)
Journeying Together: From Sunrise to Sunset
Figures gather, symbolizing marginalized bodies, and are striped in the colors of the rising and setting sun. The stripes symbolize the artist's own "hybridity," as an Afro-Caribbean American, and the number of stripes correlate to measured time—24 hours, 7 days, and 12 months. Stripes also refer to societal division along lines of race, politics, and class, as well as flags, fences, borders, barcodes, and animals. This piece draws inspiration from the Harriet Tubman Monument Project and the Underground Railroad, telling a story of people marching and assembling, coming together to create community beneath the skies.
Images by Rachel Fawn Alban.