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The Walker Curates the News: 06.29.15

Sonya Clark, Unravelling, 2015.

Sonya Clark, Unravelling, 2015.

A project that predates the June 17 killings of nine African Americans at Charleston’s historic Emanuel AME Church, Sonya Clark’s Unravelling—on view in Mixed Greens Gallery’s New Dominion show—is echoed by urgent calls for the removal of the Confederate flag from capitols, state symbols, and license plates throughout the South. Offering “a metaphor for hopes for racial progress via a performance,” the work involves the artist taking apart an actual Confederate flag, reducing it to red, white, and blue thread. Clark’s work finds resonance with an action by Bree Newsome: in one of the year’s most iconic news images, the musician, filmmaker, and activist climbed a flagpole on the South Carolina statehouse grounds Saturday and—temporarily, at least—removed the flag of the Confederacy.

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