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Middle Passage Monument: design
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(top)
Initial sketch, 1998
9 x 12"
pencil

(bottom)
Blueprint, 1998
9 x 12"
pencil

Artist's collection.

(right)
Middle Passage Monument, 1999
114 x 104 x 60"

detail

The shape of the monument was inspired by both modern and ancient African images found in its sculpture, graphic design, architecture and animal life.

It represents the opening between the African world and the American by which people came to the west as slaves and returned as spirits. The idea of this return after death has a long tradition in the American slave societies, exemplified in the Haitian concept of the Island below the Sea, the parallel world below the ocean through which Africa was rejoined.

For more on this project, refer to www.middlepassage.org.

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All images and words © 2002 Mike Walsh. Site © 2002 by Big Swell Design.