An Infrastructure of Silence began in the fall of 2020, when I began asking different questions about my cultural inheritance of white supremacy and privilege. Sorting through boxes of family documents, I traced my lineage from England to the planter elite who held political power in Colonial Virginia. These archives—diaries, photographs, and official records—revealed male ancestors as militiamen and “Indian fighters,” politicians, and large plantation owners. Several wills documented the transfer of enslaved people as property. As I examined these materials alongside other research, I spent long hours in my studio creating a body of work to process and respond to what I found. The faded pages still haunt me. Being part of this dark history fuels my commitment to addressing racial injustices today.

Art and stories have the power to transform. When they are told—again and again—change becomes possible. Within my white community, we cannot dismantle the systems that benefit us at the expense of others if we refuse to see how they were built. History’s truths are uncomfortable, yet they are the ground from which equity is possible. A conversation about racism through the arts can bring us together, opening space for honest and critical dialogue. The past is alive in our bloodlines and our silences. Confronting racism is not an act of shame—it is an act of responsibility.

My aim is not to offer solutions, but to face facts together, to look directly at how lives have been shaped—often harmed—by deliberate design. Compassion becomes possible only through understanding, and understanding begins with the courage to see.

From this reckoning, I began a collaborative exhibition in which accomplished Black, Native, and white artists and art workers co-curate and contribute to a visual and sound-based dialogue about racism in the United States. For more information about this traveling exhibition, please visit our website: https://beyondthewhitewash.com/.