Memory and Repair
Reclaiming and Embodying a Black Sense of Place Through Socially Engaged Art (SEA)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17827376 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lynn Sanders-Bustle (University of Georgia), Lynn Sanders‐Bustle (0000-0001-7017-950X, corresponding author), Rachelle Berry (Texas Christian University), Jennifer Rice (University of Georgia), Ashlyn Goode (University of Georgia) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-20 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-20 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | GeoHumanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2373-5678 • E-ISSN: 2373-566X |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/2373566x.2026.2616054 |
| OpenAlex | W7154943898 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
Using Urban Renewal in the 1960’s, Athens-Clarke County and the University System of Georgia (USG) destroyed Linnentown—a thriving Black neighborhood—and replaced it with luxury student dorms. Decades later, the authors here were brought together, along with neighborhood descendants and our local community, Athens, Georgia in the U.S., to design a memorial honoring Linnentown. Drawing on socially engaged art (SEA), Black Geographies, and emergence, we designed a participatory mosaic to be built on the site of the former neighborhood. However, USG blocked the project, reflecting the stubborn challenges of recognition and repair. In response, we created two temporary “living” mosaics built and disassembled by the community to work towards recognition and redress of anti-Black violence. We find that SEA allowed (1) a process for remembering and telling stories of Black geographies, (2) a shared space for embodied reflection and ritual, and (3) a fluid and imaginative space for engaging politically and staying with the trouble.
Action (physics) · Agency (philosophy) · Ethnography · Narrative · Perception · Perspective (graphical) · Photo elicitation · Art Education and Development · Art Therapy and Mental Health · Indigenous and Place-Based Education
A New Order of Things
The One and the Many
Unspoken Grammar of Place
America's Johannesburg
Spatializing Blackness
Writings on the Wall
Wake Work
Participatory art and geography
Urban Renewal and “Ghetto” Development in Baltimore
Black insurgent aesthetics and the public imaginary
The primacy of anti‐blackness
Dear Science and Other Stories
Staying with the trouble for multispecies environmental justice
Black matters are spatial matters
Reclaiming the chocolate city
Maroon Geographies
On plantations, prisons, and a black sense of place
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |