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To Be A Witness: Lynching and Postmemory in LaShawnda Crowe Storm's "Her Name Was Laura Nelson"

Ratcliffe, Viola
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1435789289

Abstract Details

2015, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, Art/Art History.
The literal reframing of the lynching postcard The Lynching of Laura Nelson within the medium of quilting allows for a visual re-contextualization of this image’s history. In LaShawnda Crowe Storm’s Quilt I: Her Name Was Laura Nelson the confrontation between viewers and the lynched body of an African American woman addresses an often neglected phenomenon, the lynching of black women in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th century. The literal reframing of the lynching postcard The Lynching of Laura Nelson within the medium of quilting allows for a visual re-contextualization of this image’s history. In the act of quilting Crowe Storm has removed this image from its original intention, a form of propaganda used to fuel racist ideology, and has now placed it within a context of feminism, activism, and communal art making. The selection of the medium of quilting in this work was intentional. In quilting LaShawnda Crowe Storm situates the work, and its attendant imagery, within a dialogue regarding female identity, the construction of community and the history of racial violence in the United States. As a community leader and activist in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, LaShawnda Crowe Storm developed The Lynch Quilts Project as a means to bring people from across the country together to have an honest dialogue about the legacy of lynching and racial violence in the United States. The project was developed in 2004 and is a twenty-first century quilting collective that has manifested into a social justice movement. This paper investigates the strategies by which LaShawnda Crowe Storm’s Her Name Was Laura Nelson engages viewers to construct an ethical relationship with the history of lynching in the United States and fosters the production of postmemory. Coined by the Holocaust scholar Marianne Hirsch, “Postmemory describes the relationship that the generation after those who witnessed cultural or collective trauma bears to the experiences of those who came before, experiences that they can `remember’ only by the means of the stories, images and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply that they seem to constitute memories in their own right.” As this essay argues, Crowe Storm’s appropriation of the lynch photograph of Laura Nelson into the artistic form of a quilted textile enables this often unspoken history to be transmitted generationally. By analyzing this history of racial violence through the lens of postmemory, readers will not only have a greater perception of why this type of violence continues to manifest on modern society, but also the ramifications that racial violence continues to have today.
Allison Terry-Fritsch, Dr. (Advisor)
Rebecca L. Skinner Greene, Dr. (Committee Chair)
94 p.
African Americans; Art History; Black Studies
lynching; LaShawnda Crowe Storm; Quilt I Her Name Was Laura Nelson; quilts; African American women; communal art-making; The Lynch Quilts Project

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ratcliffe, V. (2015). To Be A Witness: Lynching and Postmemory in LaShawnda Crowe Storm's "Her Name Was Laura Nelson" [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1435789289

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ratcliffe, Viola. To Be A Witness: Lynching and Postmemory in LaShawnda Crowe Storm's "Her Name Was Laura Nelson". 2015. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1435789289.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ratcliffe, Viola. "To Be A Witness: Lynching and Postmemory in LaShawnda Crowe Storm's "Her Name Was Laura Nelson"." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1435789289

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1435789289
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This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.