Libation: A shallow water table details the history of enslavement at the University. Water became a means to tell the story of liberation, which can be found in West African libation rituals that honor spirits of the ancestors and via the currents of rivers that carried people to freedom.
Credit: "Wade in the Water." Postcard of a river baptism in New Bern, North Carolina near the turn of the 20th century.
Gathering: The innermost ring is a space to bring people together. The memorial is inspired by the ritual of gathering to perform Ring Shouts, a low country ecstatic dance that moves in a circle, whose rhythms and movements connect to Western African practices.
Credit: Marc Monaghan
Muntu Dance Theatre's "Spice It Up" - Chicago Reader
Memory: On the inner surface of this ring, a genealogical cloud with memory marks represents the enslaved laborers. On the outer surface of this ring, cuts into the stone act as a remembrance of the pain felt by the laborers.
Credit: Andrew Shurtleff | The Daily Progress
Stone path: The Northern escape path of enslaved people is marked by 48 granite stones referencing the 48 years that the University depended upon the labor of enslaved laborers.
Credit: Höweler + Yoon
Location: The memorial is nestled in the sloping terrain of the Triangle of Grass within UVA's UNESCO World Heritage site boundaries. The site was preferred by the community for its visibility and accessibility to the City of Charlottesville.
Credit: Höweler + Yoon
Brick path: The diagonal brick path leading to the entrance of the memorial aligns with the March 3rd angle of the setting sun (liberation and freedom day). March 3, 1865, was the day that Union troops liberated the more than 14,000 enslaved persons in Albemarle County.
Height: The memorial's outer ring is tall enough to provide an intimate, focused experience in engaging with the genealogical cloud without obstructing views of the landscape while outside of the Memorial.
Credit: Höweler + Yoon
Size: The memorial creates a dialogue with the Rotunda, which sits at the highest point of UVA's lawn. Both the Rotunda and the Memorial are 80 feet in diameter.
Credit: Höweler + Yoon
Eto Otitigbe, Artist: Otitigbe is a polymedia artist whose interdisciplinary practice investigates the intersections of race, power, and technology. In developing the memorial’s visual imagery, Otitigbe proposed incorporating a likeness of Isabella Gibbons’ eyes. Gibbons was among the thousands of enslaved people who toiled at the University during its first half-century. Because she was a woman who exemplified triumph over despair and adversity, portraying Gibbons’ eyes allowed Otitigbe to convey a deep connection to history, discovery, and experimentation. “I took a sampling of her eyes as well as images of trauma to give the viewer a tactile experience,” Otitigbe said. “Striations in the stone will add layers of meaning to the design.”
Credit: Eto Otitigbe
Gaze: Rendering of the eyes of Isabella Gibbons, one of the few enslaved people for whom we have photographic record, directs its gaze out, into, and beyond the city of Charlottesville. The image suggests a colossus figure no longer hidden, rising from the ground, becoming visible.
Learn more about Isabella Gibbons >
Credit: Boston Public Library
Cuts: The different textures of the stone in the memorial highlight how the dualities (the pain and violence/ and dignity and humanity) and the many layers of meaning come together as a whole. The rough-hewn stone is a metaphor for weathered, scarred skin of the enslaved laborers.
Credit: Sanjay Suchak
Texture: The texture of the stone is inspired by the texture of gravestones in West African burial grounds. The memorial is made out of Virginia Mist granite which is locally quarried about 30 miles from the University of Virginia.
Credit: Sanjay Suchak
Granite: The use of granite in the campus landscape dominated by brick and white columns introduces a new material which signals a new story.
Credit: Sanjay Suchak
Timeline: The entries inscribed into the water table document the arrival of 10 enslaved laborers to clear the land that would become UVA in 1817, and cover a history of transactions, work, and violence.
Read about the history of enslavement at UVA >
Credit: Sanjay Suchak
Community cloud: The list of names and traditional features of Western memorials re-imagines social relations and re-humanizes the experiences of the enslaved. Carved into the granite, the 4,000 memory marks speak back, sometimes with tears, to their descendants and to us.