In the Shadows of Our Ancestors

Walker Art Center Magazine, 2019

In the summer of 1974, two young artists rode their bikes through the streets of Minneapolis to attend an organizing meeting for African Americans working in communications. As the writer Soyini Guyton remembers it, there were about 40 people in attendance—journalists, photographers, graphic artists, and the like. The gathering led to the formation of the Twin Cities Black Communicators, an information and support group that served to broaden definitions of communications. “The group was good at bringing people together,” said Guyton, “and compiling a list of African American people working across the disciplines.” At the time she didn’t know, she would eventually marry one of the artists who had ridden his bike to the meeting—Seitu Jones—and years later they would collaborate with his cycling companion that day, the artist Ta-Coumba Aiken.

In the summer of 2019, the Walker Art Center unveiled Shadows at the Crossroads, a multimedia project by Jones and Aiken in collaboration with Guyton. Seven shadows are sited on the concrete walking paths throughout the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Four are cast in bronze and set into the pavement, two are etched into the concrete, and one is rendered in water-resistant coating to be visible only when wet. According to the artwork label, “Each of the sculptures celebrates an important figure in Minnesota history,” including Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡṭa (Cloud Man), Harriet Robinson Scott, Eliza Winston, Siah Armajani, and Kirk Washington, Jr. The two remaining sculptures represent “more general impressions” of childhood and time. Many of the shadows for historical figures are adorned with poems written by Guyton. As Aiken says, “With very few words, her poems give you a sense of this entity who shared their life with the world.”

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