An Infrastructure of Silence is a collection of works that confront institutional racism in the United States and the interconnections of slavery, race, poverty, wealth, and segregation in the United States. As a citizen of this democracy and an artist with shameful ancestral roots in the institutions of slavery, I have a shared responsibility to help confront the divisive and persistent effects of institutionalized racism on all Americans.

My mother died in the early 2000s, leaving behind boxes of family documents, tracing 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. The faded pages still haunt me. The realization of being part of this dark history fuels my commitment to addressing racial injustices today.

The wallpaper and frames used as media throughout the collection reference my family’s racist history and the historic nightmare alliance between policy, the law, the pulpit, and the press, who joined forces in colonial America to deepen perceived differences between ‘the races’. One such policy was the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705, which legalized and codified the system of racial hierarchy by stipulating that non-white individuals were to be treated as property. This law exemplifies the kinds of mechanisms used to institutionalize racism. Racism has a lamentable staying power and continues to be used as a potent political and psychological tool in America today.

Throughout the exhibition, text is intertwined with the artwork. Using materials of association, each piece is a confrontation with racial disparities regarding wealth, housing, criminal justice, and political power. Visitors are invited to explore the 'frames of complicity' within the collection, uncovering 'artifacts of inequity' that provoke reflection and dialogue.