Past: Wrought, Knit, Labors, Legacies, 2020

Wrought, Knit, Labors, Legacies by Olalekan Jeyifous was the second in the Site See: New Views in Old Town annual public art series, which was on display from March to November 2020. The artwork is now on long-term loan to the City and can be viewed next door to the Durant Center at 1605 Cameron St.

Jeyifous’ concept frames Alexandria’s African American history through the lens of the city’s industrial and merchant history from the 17th to 20th centuries. Once a prosperous port city that was home to one of the largest domestic slave trading firms in the country, Alexandria was a major center for shipping and manufacturing with an economy inextricably tied to the work of enslaved and free African Americans.

Wrought, Knit, Labors, Legacies seeks to stitch Alexandria’s story together, featuring symbols that represent Alexandria’s merchant and manufacturing history, including factories, tobacco warehouses, breweries and railways. The ground mural incorporated African American quilting and textile traditions, which are historically tied to storytelling and oral tradition. When viewed as a whole, the pattern became an abstract grid or map, with the manufacturing icons appearing throughout. From this colorful and rich surface, four large figures faced the water.

“I consider art in the public realm to be a humble and noble endeavor,” said Jeyifous. “It provides an opportunity to bring art to non-traditional places. We can explore our histories, acknowledge mythologies of resilience and resistance, and even ponder the futures of cities and public spaces. My hope is that the artwork resonates in ways that inspire and elicit engagement and dialogue.”

In the summer of 2020, Alexandria Poet Laureate KaNikki Jakarta was commissioned to curate a spoken word series inspired by Wrought, Knit, Labors, Legacies. The performance series could not take place in front of a live audience because of the COVID-19 restrictions, but a global pandemic can not stop art. haus of bambi
was commissioned to create this short film.

Brooklyn-based Olalekan Jeyifous received a bachelor’s of architecture degree from Cornell University. His work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the MoMA, the Vitra Design Museum and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. He was named one of the 2020 Emerging Voices by the Architectural League and has received grants and fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Brooklyn Arts Council. He has completed artist residencies with the Headlands Center for the Arts, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and the Drawing Center’s Open Sessions program and was named a Wilder Green Fellow at the MacDowell Colony.

Jeyifous has spent over a decade creating large-scale artwork for a variety of public spaces. He was commissioned, with collaborator Amanda Williams, to create a monument for Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm as part of the City of New York’s She Built NYC initiative. His banner wrap for the Corcoran Garage in Durham, NC received the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Year in Review Award in 2019. He has also created award-winning installations for Starbucks in the Barclays Arena in Brooklyn and their flagship store in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, a 50ft-tall sculpture for the 2017 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and 4 large sculptures for Public Square in downtown Cleveland, OH.