Bryn Mawr College unveiled a powerful new art installation last Thursday that honors the Black workers who helped build and sustain the Main Line institution over a century ago, writes Isaac Avilucea for Axios Philadelphia.
The piece, titled “Don’t Forget to Remember (Me)” by D.C.-based artist Nekisha Durrett, transforms the Cloisters courtyard with a braided pathway of 10,000 handmade clay pavers. Each step represents the lives and labor of Black servants who worked at the college from 1900 to 1930.
The pavers include the names of 248 identified workers, while illuminated tiles honor the many others whose names have been lost to time. Soil from the old Perry House, once a Black cultural center on campus, grounds the installation in generations of lived experience.
The pathway’s length mirrors the walk Enid Cook, Bryn Mawr’s first Black female graduate, once made from her off-campus home to the heart of campus.
Durrett says the project was inspired by the braids of a guide who led a “Black at Bryn Mawr” tour — a symbol she now uses to reclaim a space once shadowed by exclusion.
Read more about the art installation at Bryn Mawr College in Axios Philadelphia.
