Art and Architecture: African American Identity and Hollowed Grounds

• In Event: Scared Spaces Throughout the African diaspora.

Abstract

This essay explores art and architecture as a lens to examine African American identity in relationship to sacred sites and hollowed grounds. In addition to current literature on these topics, my methodology includes oral history interviews with people as they recount their experiences while visiting the slave-coast in West Africa, and while witnessing first-hand burial customs and traditions in Ghana and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This essay is divided into four primary topics: 1) Atlantic-Slave Trade Sites will include a discussion on architectural layout and design, and its relationship to desensitizing individuals of self and acclimating them to a life as slave. 2) West African Burial Customs and Sites will examine burial rituals in West Africa (Ghana and Republic of Congo) and how those practices reflected communal views and beliefs, as well as, one’s individual identity. 3) African Traditions in African American Graveyards and Sacred Sites will discuss how African burial customs were retained and reinterpreted and the role those customs had in shaping contemporary identity. This essay will conclude with 4) Expressions of the Sacred in altars, paintings, and sculpture by African American visual artists. This essay will be accompanied by a number of images in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.

Author

• Pearlie Mae Johnson, University of Louisville