Installed at The Sugar Hill Museum Of Art and Storytelling, NYC
March 2022-February 2023
In 1848, the sisters Mary and Eliza Freeman built their homes in Little Liberia on the Southside of Bridgeport CT. The multi-ethnic neighborhood began forming in the 1820’s and the Freeman sisters moved to join brother Joel. Mary Freeman developed a mortgage system for other families of color and women to purchase their own homes and at the time of her death was the second wealthiest person in Bridgeport except for exploitative showman turn politician, P.T. Barnum.
The sculptures in the Hypogean Tip are comprised of various landscapes from around the sisters homes including Mary’s front porch. Cast in broken glass, shells, marsh grasses, and the land itself, the decks are elevated on bright rolling scaffolds. These surround steel sawhorses which carry the weight of seashell encrusted mounds cast in coal representing the coal burning power plant whose smoke stack rises above the houses to this day. An elongated version of Barnums hat becomes that giant chimney, while a marble dust siren stands atop one of the scaffolds in a face off with the captains of industry.
This exhibition was originally commissioned by the Housatonic Museum of Art with The Mary and Eliza Freeman Center, Bridgeport CT
Video Walkthrough
The original commissioned exhibition of this project.
February 2020 - March 2020 (closed early due to COVID outbreak)