Rachel Sydlowski and Marquise Foster
Screenprint collage, hand printed upholstery, vintage chairs and table, acrylic paint, cardboard, UV-A light
Ceremonial Clothing by Marquise Foster
Gown; black embroidered lace with small crystals throughout the gown and gloves
Suit; black heavy shin satin cotton paired with a white high neck cotton shirt and a pair of high waist satin cotton pants
Intervening with the architectural spaces of The Dyckman Farmhouse, Assembly of Ciphers inverts the systemic power and social structure of the front parlor from a leisure space for the Dyckman family into a space honoring and recognizing the lives of enslaved peoples of Upper Manhattan and those enslaved by the Dyckman family. Spaces such as these, force us to question history. How can we know the past? How do we connect with those who walked the land we now walk? What were their lives like? The viewer is bestowed the task of deciphering the past; to unearth the fragments, to interpret a code.
In their first collaboration together, artists Rachel Sydlowski and Marquise Foster negotiate with existing architecture, furniture, and decorative objects. Replacing the portraits of the Dyckman family is a collection of ceremonial or mourning clothes, a formal dress and suit by Marquise Foster. The conceptual framing of this clothing and its role as a false artifact presented as fact fold the past and present together. Printed flora and fauna, native, medicinal, and popular garden plants are printed in cobalt blue, connecting with the pastoral and decorative imagery of the hearth’s delft tiles. Adding to this transformation, artist Rachel Sydlowski, overprints in an invisible ultraviolet medium. Native plants from the ancestral lands of the enslaved, excerpts from documents, names of the enslaved, and other cryptic symbols of are hidden throughout the room. To view these invisible images, visitors must investigate and search with the aid of a blacklight or UV-A lantern. Chairs from different historical periods form a circle in the center of the parlor signifying an assembly or meeting place.
Activation of the space allows visitors to consider the lives of the slaves and their untold histories by assembling in the same space that was once occupied by the original dwellers. By inhabiting the parlor and engaging with the past the complex code of history is activated. Rather than restoring lost histories the act of being present lays the groundwork in moving forward in becoming gifted architects of a more just and perfect future.