Constellations As Yet Unnamed
Transformer Station | Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, OH
June 2021
“Constellations As Yet Unnamed” is centered on eight formerly enslaved women and girls who escaped from the Dobbins (Dobyns) farm in Mason County, Kentucky in 1853. When they arrived in Oberlin, Lee Howard, the four-year-old boy they had adopted and were shepherding northward to freedom, fell ill, and was left in the care of an Oberlin family, where he passed 9 days later. The women continued on to Canada, and it has been my project to trace their stories and recover their identities. Their stories have been lost to history, and my extended work has been an ongoing effort to retrieve the history surrounding the entire group of nine individuals who stole themselves away on that occasion back in 1853.
As visitors move throughout this immersive installation, the voices of eight contemporary Black women who live in Oberlin can be heard, speaking across time and space to the eight women who attempted to shepherd the young Dobbins to freedom. I have not scripted these narratives, but asked the participants the following: If given the opportunity to speak directly to these courageous women, what would you say to them?
The ambient sounds, smells, and sights in the installation recall the landscape that the group navigated through on their journey, across the Ohio river, with much of their travel under the cover of night. The voices of the eight women rise and fall alongside the woven ambience of wetlands adjacent to Lake Erie. The song of a lone black bird enters the space signifying the child alongside the continuous murmur of prayer.
Photo Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art, and John Seyfried