In Philadelphia, the struggle over historical memory has moved from the courtroom to the waterfront. Following the federal government’s removal of exhibits documenting the reality of slavery from a national historic park earlier this year, the city has responded with both a lawsuit and a new wave of public art. At the center of this cultural friction is Ona Judge, who in 1796 fled the household of George and Martha Washington to secure her own freedom.
As part of the inaugural ArtPhilly festival, New York-based conceptual artist indira allegra will unveil *Sail Through This to That* on May 28 at Spruce Street Harbor. The installation consists of three sprawling schooner sails, a direct reference to the maritime escape route Judge took to New Hampshire. The work arrives as the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a milestone that has increasingly become a flashpoint for how national institutions navigate presidential mandates to portray the founding era’s history.
Allegra’s monument is layered with contemporary resonance. The sails incorporate the neon aesthetics associated with Rem'mie Fells, a 27-year-old Black transgender woman and aspiring fashion designer murdered in Philadelphia in 2020. By intertwining Judge’s 18th-century flight with a tribute to a modern victim of violence, the installation positions the harbor not just as a site of transit, but as a space for reckoning with the persistent precarity of Black life in the American project.
With reporting from Hyperallergic.
Source · Hyperallergic