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Public Art That Remembers The Past · Inside West Palm Beach

• 0:09
  Welcome to the City Center podcast from West Palm Beach,
• 0:12
  Florida.
• 0:12
  I'm Jerry Marcelo.
• 0:14
  The presence of beautiful art in public places can bind the community together with pride.
• 0:20
  Art can elevate a city's cultural awareness and change the way individuals look at life and the place where they live.
• 0:27
  Art can also shine a light on the past,
• 0:30
  illuminating nearly forgotten history and honoring those who pioneered the place we call home.
• 0:37
  Nakesha Duret is a mixed media artist from Washington DC who uses her art to highlight the often forgotten histories of people,
• 0:44
  places and things we see every day in local communities.
• 0:47
  Nakesha.
• 0:48
  Welcome.
• 0:49
  Thank you.
• 0:50
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:51
  Well,
• 0:51
  we appreciate you being here,
• 0:53
  Nikisha.
• 0:54
  Your work is often intertwined with local history.
• 0:56
  Will you tell us a little bit about your own personal history?
• 0:59
  And how did the past become such an important part of your art?
• 1:04
  Well,
• 1:04
  um I was born in Washington DC and grew up um just a few miles outside of DC um as a budding young artist.
• 1:13
  Um and growing up in such close proximity to the Smithsonian,
• 1:17
  I spent a lot of time with my parents.
• 1:20
  Um like perusing the historical collections of the Smithsonian,
• 1:25
  um,
• 1:26
  art and art and American history.
• 1:30
  So,
• 1:31
  I guess early on I got a taste of what it feels like to be erased from history.
• 1:38
  I often,
• 1:39
  often times I didn't see the stories that related to that related to black people reflected in a way that felt whole.
• 1:51
  Can you give me elaborate on that?
• 1:53
  That's very important.
• 1:54
  Tell us a little bit more about that.
• 1:55
  Well,
• 1:56
  I oftentimes because I had an interest in art,
• 2:00
  um My parents thought it was really important that I go to the local museums um to see um to see art in its um you know,
• 2:10
  in its various forms.
• 2:12
  And oftentimes,
• 2:15
  I didn't see art with a,
• 2:18
  with a few exceptions,
• 2:20
  I didn't really see art that reflect uh the stories of black people and also art that reflects the histories of certain locations as well.
• 2:32
  Listen to an example that you shared with our,
• 2:34
  with City Council last year about.
• 2:36
  Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 2:38
  Yeah.
• 2:38
  So I just completed back in June,
• 2:41
  I unveiled a sculpture um a 35 ft tower called Queen City.
• 2:46
  Queen City is the name of a former black community that was destroyed in 1941 for the construction of the Pentagon.
• 2:56
  I have driven by the Pentagon.
• 3:01
  Oh my goodness,
• 3:02
  hundreds of times throughout my life and never knew this story that was like literally beneath my feet.
• 3:10
  Well,
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  and you know,
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  and that what you describe often happens here in South Florida.
• 3:14
  We,
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  we,
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  we,
• 3:15
  we're a place where uh towns are constantly reinventing themselves and adding things and part of constructing a new profile,
• 3:25
  often requires destroying something that was already there.
• 3:28
  So,
• 3:29
  this experience of this community in Virginia being lost to the creation of something new.
• 3:37
  It's important to remember the people that were there.
• 3:40
  Absolutely.
• 3:41
  And,
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  and these histories aren't,
• 3:42
  um they're not ancient history.
• 3:46
  There are people who are still alive today that have a direct connection to these histories.
• 3:53
  And that erasure is very much alive and well in their minds and bodies.
• 4:01
  I had the opportunity to meet a 92 year old former resident of this community who remembers the day that the,
• 4:09
  you know,
• 4:09
  that the,
• 4:10
  that they were told that they had to leave,
• 4:12
  they were given three weeks um to leave this place that,
• 4:16
  you know,
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  that had been their home for so long.
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  Um And,
• 4:21
  you know,
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  he remembers what it was like to never see some of his friends again.
• 4:26
  You know,
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  there was no,
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  it was 19 forties,
• 4:28
  you know,
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  there was no internet.
• 4:30
  Um So there was no when you said goodbye to someone like you were really saying goodbye.
• 4:35
  Um And so there were many people that he just never saw again.
• 4:39
  And so your art tries to capture this memory,
• 4:42
  open,
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  shine a light on these people.
• 4:44
  And yeah,
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  and this wasn't,
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  you know,
• 4:47
  this wasn't,
• 4:48
  you know,
• 4:48
  much like,
• 4:49
  um,
• 4:49
  the community of the Sticks.
• 4:52
  Uh,
• 4:52
  this wasn't a community that had a lot of material wealth,
• 4:57
  but there was a,
• 4:59
  you know,
• 4:59
  a cultural richness and there was,
• 5:03
  um,
• 5:04
  a community.
• 5:05
  Um,
• 5:06
  and,
• 5:07
  um,
• 5:08
  and,
• 5:09
  uh,
• 5:10
  yeah,
• 5:10
  there was,
• 5:10
  there was a strong sense of community.
• 5:13
  Now,
• 5:14
  we're talking now about a new piece of art which is now being,
• 5:18
  uh,
• 5:19
  and unveiled here in West Palm Beach and it is in Heart and Soul Park.
• 5:23
  Tell us why.
• 5:24
  That location is a great spot for remembering the past.
• 5:30
  Yeah,
• 5:30
  I have to go back.
• 5:32
  Uh I guess 332 to 3 years was the first time that I made a visit down to West Palm Beach.
• 5:39
  I was very familiar with Palm Beach.
• 5:42
  As I think a lot of people who are outside of Florida are very familiar with Palm Beach.
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  That's a story that,
• 5:49
  you know,
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  that is a place that gets lifted up oftentimes in conversation.
• 5:54
  Um But I didn't know about West Palm Beach and I was told a little bit about it,
• 6:02
  but I came down um did a little research while I was in the hotel room.
• 6:08
  And one of the things that um when I began my research,
• 6:13
  I know that when I put in the name of the place,
• 6:17
  if I,
• 6:18
  you know,
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  just in Google,
• 6:19
  if I put in West Palm Beach,
• 6:21
  that the Black history of West Palm Beach or of Palm Beach is not going to rise to the top of the search engine.
• 6:29
  So what I have to do is search for Black history in a particular location.
• 6:35
  And once I did that,
• 6:37
  I mean,
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  you know,
• 6:38
  the story of the Sticks and,
• 6:40
  um,
• 6:41
  you know,
• 6:41
  in the historic Northwest,
• 6:43
  that rich history was right there at the rich yet tragic history was right there at the top.
• 6:51
  You once said what Palm Beach has in material wealth.
• 6:56
  West Palm Beach has in heart soul and genius.
• 7:00
  Tell us what that means.
• 7:02
  Yeah.
• 7:02
  So again,
• 7:03
  like I was saying about,
• 7:04
  um about Queen City.
• 7:07
  Um you know,
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  these were individuals who did not have a lot of money.
• 7:12
  Um But they did have,
• 7:14
  you know,
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  they had,
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  they had heart,
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  they had grit,
• 7:17
  they had soul,
• 7:17
  they had uh determination.
• 7:21
  Um There's something that I heard um recently,
• 7:24
  um which I think really resonates and that is,
• 7:28
  um that if you don't shape your heart,
• 7:32
  the world will shape it for you.
• 7:35
  So,
• 7:37
  the,
• 7:37
  the,
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  the,
• 7:38
  the folks who currently live in,
• 7:40
  in,
• 7:40
  in the historic Northwest are the descendants of individuals who built Palm Beach and then,
• 7:48
  you know,
• 7:48
  that community there and the sticks that they,
• 7:50
  that they,
• 7:51
  where they settled was destroyed,
• 7:55
  erased.
• 7:55
  You know,
• 7:56
  there were the things that were said about them that they were,
• 7:59
  you know,
• 8:00
  they were degenerate and that,
• 8:02
  you know,
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  that the,
• 8:03
  that their,
• 8:04
  that their land was um was um was filthy and,
• 8:10
  you know,
• 8:10
  just all of the horrible things that were said about,
• 8:13
  about them to justify their displacement.
• 8:17
  Um That was something that they didn't allow that to shape them.
• 8:21
  But what they did was they uh full of determination.
• 8:26
  And also on the other hand,
• 8:28
  um extreme,
• 8:29
  profound sadness and loss gathered as much as they could,
• 8:36
  as much as they could salvage.
• 8:38
  And they marched across a tiny bridge over to West Palm Beach,
• 8:43
  which had been recently incorporated and they built this thriving black community um which included the Sunset Lounge,
• 8:53
  which I like to refer to as a space of liberation.
• 8:57
  This is a space where they could live out their live out their lives from under the surveillance that they,
• 9:08
  that they would have outside of this enclave.
• 9:13
  Um So they very much shaped their own hearts and I wanted to envision what the shape of that heart that they created what that looked like.
• 9:33
  And that's how I arrived at genius loca.
• 9:36
  Genius.
• 9:36
  Look,
• 9:36
  I tell us how you came about,
• 9:41
  first of all with that incredible title and also how you developed its final form.
• 9:47
  Now,
• 9:47
  obviously,
• 9:47
  this is an audio.
• 9:48
  So we're gonna have to sort of fill,
• 9:50
  fill in the blanks with our word pictures,
• 9:52
  but tell us how you got there and what it's about.
• 9:56
  So around the time that I was um that I was researching uh the,
• 10:02
  the historic Northwest and the sticks.
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  I,
• 10:06
  well,
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  I listened to a poem um by the poet,
• 10:11
  uh David White,
• 10:13
  um,
• 10:15
  who is as white as his name sounds,
• 10:17
  he's an Irish Irishman.
• 10:20
  Um,
• 10:20
  but I love the way that David White writes about landscape and he spoke about the word genius.
• 10:30
  Um,
• 10:32
  and how typically we think of this word,
• 10:36
  this word genius is very,
• 10:38
  um,
• 10:38
  exclusionary.
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  Um It includes largely,
• 10:43
  uh,
• 10:44
  individuals who are a male,
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  um,
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  who are white.
• 10:48
  Um But he spoke of genius in this sort of in this way that,
• 10:53
  that reference that,
• 10:54
  that harkened back to its ancient meaning in which we would talk about genius as um as the land,
• 11:02
  as,
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  as um as,
• 11:03
  as the landscape,
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  we would talk about genius as the word genius reference,
• 11:11
  the landscape and how uh the rivers,
• 11:17
  the marshes,
• 11:18
  the trees,
• 11:19
  how things convened in a particular place,
• 11:23
  um that made that place unique so that more ancient interpretation of the word genius when apply it to human beings is so much more generous and open.
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  Um And that anyone,
• 11:49
  everyone has genius,
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  that genius is where all of those ancestral voices and experiences,
• 12:00
  both sad and sorrowful,
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  happy and joyous,
• 12:08
  all of those experiences meet inside of us.
• 12:11
  So everyone has genius.
• 12:14
  And so tell us how that setting led to the development of the artwork that you've created.
• 12:24
  Well,
• 12:24
  I,
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  I looked at a lot of um historical photographs of um,
• 12:30
  of the Sunset Lounge and um you know,
• 12:33
  looked at,
• 12:34
  you know,
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  the performers who performed there and just looking at the,
• 12:40
  the individuals who were um who were dancing and partying in this place,
• 12:46
  like despite whatever obstacles they faced and hardships they faced outside of this place.
• 12:55
  Um You know,
• 12:56
  this was a space of liberation and the black community and the black community often has sites like this.
• 13:06
  Um And so I was thinking about like looking at this long list of people who had performed at,
• 13:15
  at the,
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  at the Sunset Lounge.
• 13:18
  And one of them being Duke Ellington,
• 13:21
  who I have a kind of a connection to um because uh Duke Ellington was from Washington DC.
• 13:30
  Um My high school is named after Duke Ellington.
• 13:34
  And um so I've done a lot.
• 13:36
  The high school where I taught was,
• 13:38
  you know,
• 13:38
  named Duke Ellington.
• 13:39
  And so oftentimes um I did a project with my students where they had to find quotes by Duke Ellington and we pasted these quotes up all around the school.
• 13:53
  One of his quotes was about um the,
• 13:56
  the air shaft of a Harlem tenement.
• 13:59
  And he wrote a song that was called Air Shaft.
• 14:02
  And um he named this piece Air Shaft because he was inspired by the sounds and the smells of the inside of a Harlem tenement.
• 14:15
  When you would put your ear up to the air shaft or like,
• 14:19
  you know,
• 14:19
  put your nose out the window,
• 14:22
  you could smell what people were having for dinner.
• 14:25
  Um You could hear a couple fighting or making love.
• 14:28
  Um And so the air shaft,
• 14:31
  he described as being a loudspeaker for the uh the interior lives of the people within the Harlem tenements who would have been black people.
• 14:41
  And um that was just such a striking visual for me.
• 14:45
  And I actually created a piece in DC that was called Harlem Air Shaft.
• 14:50
  Uh It was called air shaft And um that,
• 14:57
  that visual of the air shaft being a loudspeaker just was so resonant to me.
• 15:05
  And so I thought about that,
• 15:07
  you know,
• 15:08
  thought about the object,
• 15:09
  the loudspeaker and,
• 15:12
  and a speaker and like what,
• 15:13
  what,
• 15:13
  what form a speaker can take on.
• 15:17
  And uh so I looked up like a contemporary speaker and then I thought,
• 15:22
  well,
• 15:22
  what would you,
• 15:22
  what would a speaker look like?
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  You know,
• 15:25
  during the,
• 15:26
  during the 19 twenties,
• 15:27
  during the 19 thirties?
• 15:29
  And um you know,
• 15:30
  and of course,
• 15:31
  I came across the gramophone speaker and I said,
• 15:35
  wow,
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  what a,
• 15:35
  what a beautiful form.
• 15:38
  And um and then I looked at the tweeter at the center of a,
• 15:43
  of a contemporary speaker and imagine that as a mirror that could be,
• 15:51
  you know,
• 15:52
  when this piece,
• 15:53
  when this piece would be sort of angled toward the sky,
• 15:56
  the front,
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  the front side of the piece would be like the mouth of the speaker would be aimed at the sky and then the back of the speaker would be aimed toward the ground that there would be the suggestion that the,
• 16:09
  that the ancestors uh were speaking through this loudspeaker.
• 16:15
  And then the person like listening to this,
• 16:18
  the loudspeaker could also see themselves listening in.
• 16:23
  That's a fantastic image,
• 16:24
  that's really great.
• 16:26
  Um And the,
• 16:27
  the work itself is substantial in size.
• 16:30
  It's very large.
• 16:31
  Tell us why you choose to design on such a scale.
• 16:34
  Scale is a really important um tool for me.
• 16:39
  Um You know,
• 16:41
  I,
• 16:42
  I,
• 16:42
  as I spoke earlier,
• 16:44
  um about knowing what it's like to be erased.
• 16:49
  Um to feel small,
• 16:52
  to feel like um your particular histories or contributions,
• 16:57
  um Don't amount to much.
• 17:00
  Um For me,
• 17:02
  it's really important to um to use scale to take up space um and not to take up space necessarily for me,
• 17:12
  but to take up space for people um who um to take up space for people who are,
• 17:22
  who are no longer here,
• 17:24
  who are no longer in a position to speak for themselves.
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  See,
• 17:27
  n that's,
• 17:28
  that,
• 17:28
  that's so important and I would recommend that anyone go down and,
• 17:32
  and to Heart and Soul Park and check out this work.
• 17:35
  Um It is on a huge scale and it's important that it is because in my opinion,
• 17:41
  the,
• 17:41
  the concept of the voices from the past being elevated and becoming important once again on such a scale um is so important,
• 17:50
  they weren't little voices,
• 17:51
  they weren't whispers,
• 17:52
  we're making them loud so that they remembered.
• 17:55
  And I think that's a very strong,
• 17:56
  beautiful image,
• 17:57
  you know,
• 17:58
  to,
• 17:58
  for,
• 17:58
  for,
• 17:59
  for your work and for that community to have.
• 18:01
  Um as we wrap up here,
• 18:04
  I wanted to touch on an opportunity that we have that sometimes artists don't uh you have an opportunity to talk to the visitors and the residents that live nearby.
• 18:14
  What do you say to them about this work?
• 18:18
  Well,
• 18:18
  I can,
• 18:18
  I can share with you a couple of the conversations that I've had with people as I've been down here this week,
• 18:23
  installing the work.
• 18:25
  Um People are obviously very curious.
• 18:27
  They have a lot of questions,
• 18:28
  you know,
• 18:28
  what is this supposed to represent?
• 18:30
  You know,
• 18:30
  what,
• 18:30
  what is this thing?
• 18:32
  And um I had a particular encounter with someone that I thought that really moved me because one of the,
• 18:42
  one of the earliest things that I remember thinking about this piece,
• 18:46
  you know,
• 18:46
  I kind of pose certain questions to myself as I'm as I'm working.
• 18:51
  And one of the questions that I asked myself was,
• 18:54
  how could this be a site for healing?
• 18:57
  And um there was,
• 19:00
  and I hadn't forgotten about this conversation actually until this morning when I was preparing for this interview and looking over,
• 19:05
  you know,
• 19:05
  some of my early notes around the work.
• 19:08
  Um But I had a conversation with a gentleman who entered the park was very curious about the piece and engaging me with questions.
• 19:19
  And he happened to be on a healing journey,
• 19:23
  both physical and spiritual.
• 19:27
  And I told him,
• 19:30
  you know,
• 19:32
  you know,
• 19:32
  one of the things he shared with me was that he had been injured physically.
• 19:37
  And I think it was an injury to his leg.
• 19:40
  And that one of the ways that he um began to heal himself was to remove his shoes and to make contact with the ground.
• 19:49
  Like every day he started this practice.
• 19:53
  And I said,
• 19:53
  you know,
• 19:54
  copper is very healing and this piece is made of copper.
• 20:00
  And he,
• 20:00
  his eyes got really big and the smile came across his face and he said,
• 20:04
  are you serious?
• 20:05
  And I said,
• 20:06
  yeah.
• 20:07
  And he said,
• 20:07
  can I touch it?
• 20:08
  And I said,
• 20:09
  yeah,
• 20:09
  go ahead.
• 20:10
  And so he goes up and he puts both of his hands on the piece and he just holds them there for several seconds and he walks away.
• 20:18
  He comes over to me and I said,
• 20:20
  could you could you feel anything?
• 20:22
  And he said,
• 20:22
  yeah,
• 20:23
  I got chills.
• 20:25
  So this is this piece is a site for healing.
• 20:28
  There was a young man who came up after the piece was completely installed and you know,
• 20:34
  the installers were polishing the work and everything.
• 20:38
  And he was like,
• 20:39
  wow,
• 20:39
  this is really cool.
• 20:41
  This is,
• 20:41
  this is awesome.
• 20:43
  But I knew that he wasn't seeing one of the key features because night had fallen and you couldn't see the reflection of the sky.
• 20:49
  You couldn't see that,
• 20:50
  that tweeter in the center was a,
• 20:51
  was a mirror.
• 20:53
  And uh and I said,
• 20:54
  can I show you something?
• 20:56
  And so we walked up into the,
• 20:58
  into the sculpture pad and we looked into the mirror together and it was like,
• 21:06
  he just like on some,
• 21:09
  like just intuitive level,
• 21:10
  like he just got it and he pulled out a uh a lighter and lit a flame in,
• 21:17
  you know,
• 21:18
  between the two of us in front of the mirror.
• 21:20
  And it was like,
• 21:21
  just so beautiful.
• 21:22
  Like,
• 21:23
  you know,
• 21:23
  it's a part of this work is,
• 21:25
  you know,
• 21:25
  is this detail of the,
• 21:27
  the Charred wood that it sits on top of it's actually concrete form to look like Charred wood.
• 21:33
  But that reference to fire,
• 21:35
  which was,
• 21:36
  you know,
• 21:36
  the destruction of the sticks.
• 21:38
  Um But also,
• 21:40
  you know,
• 21:41
  the rising of the phoenix that happened in West Palm and he just,
• 21:46
  he just got it.
• 21:48
  So,
• 21:49
  you know,
• 21:49
  the other thing,
• 21:50
  the other thing I would ask and that and the thing that I always say the same thing that I will repeat what I told Zamari.
• 21:56
  I said this piece is yours.
• 21:59
  He said mine.
• 22:00
  I said,
• 22:00
  yes,
• 22:00
  it's yours.
• 22:02
  That's fantastic.
• 22:04
  That's fantastic.
• 22:05
  Nikisha Duret.
• 22:06
  Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us today.
• 22:09
  And more importantly,
• 22:09
  bringing this art,
• 22:11
  this specific piece to West Palm Beach.
• 22:13
  It's my honor.
• 22:15
  Nikisha Dutt's genius loai can be seen at Heart and Soul Park located at 825 North Rosemary Avenue in West Palm Beach.
• 22:23
  If you would like to learn more about art life,
• 22:25
  West Palm Beach,
• 22:26
  the city's public art program,
• 22:27
  visit the West Palm Beach website at W pb.org/art Life.
• 22:34
  If you've enjoyed this podcast,
• 22:35
  please subscribe.
• 22:37
  There's much more about West Palm Beach on the way.
• 22:39
  I'm Jerry Marcelo.
• 22:41
  We'll see you next time.