The National Slavery Memorial Studio will serve as a basis to redefine the memorial landscape of our nation’s capital and the historical narrative of our collective identity as citizens of The United States. More specifically, the design process will serve as a resource for ongoing legislative efforts to build a Memorial to Slavery in Washington, DC by both government and community stakeholders.
The Studio is an extension of the ongoing inter-disciplinary collaborative research seminar between Yale School of Architecture, Yale Law School, The Gilder Lehrman Center and Michigan Law School entitled Slavery, Its Legacies and the Built Environment. The Fall Seminar has produced for use by the Spring Studio, a Narrative Framework Document which investigates and interrogates the phenomenon of Slavery through the lens of the Law, History, Architecture and Systems of Labor with the goal of constructing environments free of human exploitation.
The Studio’s travel itinerary shall include trips to The National Memorial of Peace and Justice and Legacy Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, The University of Virginia’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers in Charlottesville, Virginia and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. The trip will terminate at Washington, DC where we will visit and document the proposed Memorial’s waterfront site in West Potomac Park between the Potomac River and Tidal Basin, just south of the Lincoln Memorial.
While in DC the studio will have the unique opportunity to participate in a Community Engagement Process moderated by a local Georgetown based Not for Profit Organization which will provide the Design Studio an interactive venue to both listen to the voices, and be informed by the opinions of local community stakeholders.