During the Black Lives Matter protests in Richmond, VA, the two fourteen-year-olds posed in a powerful photo in front of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s statue. Ava had originally arranged an appointment with photographer Marcus Ingram, but as she and Kennedy posed in front of the graffiti-covered monument with their fists firmly jutted in the air, several photographers began snapping pictures.
Over the winter break, I was actually able to see the recently re-decorated Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia. After the height of the Black Lives Matter Protests over the past summer, it couldn’t be torn down, but it was fully wrapped with protest art. All phrases and slogans (such as Black Trans Lives Matter, ACAB, Etc.) were in full display over the statue of the infamous Confederate General.
A Richmond, VA.-based activist group called Indecline has recently installed a street art resistance installation of several hung clown figures dressed like the KKK from a tree in Richmond’s Bryan Park.
Text by Jessica Stewart
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In Virginia, one artist is helping his community reclaim a controversial monument in the name of Black Lives Matter. The Robert E. Lee Monument now stands as the only remaining Confederate statue on Richmond's historic Monument Avenue. While litigation ties up the statue's removal, light projection artist Dustin Klein is using his art to change the meaning of this contentious monument.