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ABIGAIL DEVILLE:[br]"If there is no struggle there is no progress."

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"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet[br]depreciate agitation,"

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"are men who want crops without plowing up[br]the ground,"

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"they want rain without thunder and lightning."

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"They want the ocean without the awful roar[br]of its many waters."

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Frederick Douglass, August 4th, 1857.

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[Abigail DeVille: "Light of Freedom"]

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[Madison Square Park]

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Initially, I found the[br]Frederick Douglass quote,

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and that was just me[br]thinking about a way to

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quickly contextualize what happened this summer.

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I think it was the images that he painted.

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I just kept thinking about the rolling waves,

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and just the waves of people that[br]hooked each other, arm in arm,

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and protested in the face of, potentially,[br]death,

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through this pandemic,

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to fight for whatever this nation[br]actually pretends

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that it was founded or based on.

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It's a commemoration of the Black Lives Matter[br]protests and movement,

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and the Black lives here in this continent[br]for 400 years.

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As I was placing the arms,

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thinking about the kinds of ways in which[br]everything could have been so different,

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that there have been opportunities and moments[br]that have been missed,

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cyclically in New York history and in the[br]nation's history as a whole:

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moments for progress

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or moments that potentially the playing field[br]was going to be evened out.

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I had a really awesome fourth grade teacher,

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her name was Mrs. Hammond.

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She was spectacular.

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She really made history come alive for us.

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She played for us Martin Luther King's[br]"I Have A Dream" speech on vinyl,

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and you could hear a pin drop in that classroom.

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I just remember holding my best friend's hand[br]underneath the table the entire time

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just being so moved by his words

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and the power of his words.

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She planted a seed, for sure,

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of thinking about how we're all participants[br]within history.

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Seeing images of the Statue of Liberty's hand[br]with torch in the park,

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I was just like, "Okay, now I can stop looking."

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"This is it."

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"It's everything that I'm thinking about--"

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"everything I want to talk about."

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The torch and the hand of the Statue of Liberty

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sat in this park for six years[br]from 1876 to 1882

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while they were trying to fundraise[br]for the pedestal

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for the Statue of Liberty.

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I love scaffolding.

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It's ubiquitous here in New York City.

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Things have always been constructed[br]and torn down.

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This idea of freedom is under continual construction--

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and reconstruction--

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from generation to generation.

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Thinking about bells being another symbol[br]of liberty,

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but then encaged within this torch,

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that it actually can't really make a sound.

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That also is the fuel of the torch,

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and also blue fire being the hottest fire[br]that there is.

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Society has tried to separate us or define[br]us by our bodies

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or where we live--

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or socioeconomic class, education, everything.

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And then how collectively we can[br]link our arms together

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and assert something else.

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I think making that work,

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it was, in a way, like a prayer or a hope

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for something for the future--

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to bring names from the past into the present.

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And then to continue the descension--

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to pass the baton to honor the collective.