Monument project in New Jersey seeks to reframe narrative about migrants and labor amid political rhetoric and debates – WHYY

New York–based artist Immanuel Oni is behind the South Jersey monument. The “space doula,” who helps people declutter and clear emotional or energetic patterns in an environment, says much of his work is rooted in bringing people together.

“For me, art making is not about what I’m making, it’s about who I’m making it for,” he said.

Oni praised the organizers of the project for hosting “a lot” of the community dialogue to build “a very solid foundation” of engagement.

“I found that their approach was very robust and that they did a lot of the heavy lifting because that’s something that I usually do from the ground up,” Oni added.

Betty Brown-Pitts, of Vineland, participated in the feedback sessions. Her father moved from Alabama to New Jersey in 1945 to work at Seabrook Farms, and her mother followed about seven years later.

When the monument is built, Brown-Pitts hopes people will be proud that their story will be preserved.

“I think it’s very important to preserve these stories and our contributions that my family and other African Americans made to Seabrook Farms,” she said.

During a second set of meetings in January, each artist will present their initial designs to stakeholders.

“They’ll bring those materials and sketches and activities that hopefully will allow them to get additional input,” Urban said.

There will be a third set of meetings where stakeholders will sign off on the final designs.

Fabrication is expected to take place from the end of March until the start of summer. Urban said that once the monuments have their formal debut, a series of “activation programming” will follow.

“We’re going to try to bring community members back out to gather at the completed monument installations and use it as another opportunity to reflect more on migration and labor and other histories from different communities that we might harvest in the future,” Urban said.