First Contact- An installation for Works on Water/ Underwater New York Residency on Governors Island

  “First Contact” is an installation and media performance-in-progess. The basis of the piece is the correspondence from the period of 1759 to 1769 between Medford, Massachusetts slave trader Timothy Fitch and the captains who sailed his ships. These letters are a mode for examination of the irrevocable point of contact where bodies meet—the intersection of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, and also the meeting of British settlers and the Africans whose contact, collision, and conflict will eventually produce the “Americans.” During the 2019 WoW/UNY residency I produced video, sound, photographs, and objects relating to these historical points of contact and the ripples that affect our present moments.

 

 

 

 

 

Installation documentation