Heaven's Gate

Savannah itself is known as America›s first planned city, and today, its downtown
area is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the United
States (designated in 1966).

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It is significant for my creative thinking and planning to understand the history
of Savannah and relate it to what I saw while visiting this city in May 2012. After
viewing the exhibition halls of the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), as
well as spending time speaking with Savannah residents about their history, I
began to understand for myself a particular and deep sense of complexity that
exists within Savannah. It was a city that was at the epicenter of the slave trade
and a beneficiary of cotton plantations existing at that time. It was a city of
consideration in the devastating march of General William Sherman’s soldiers
across the southern states during the American Civil War. It has been and
continues to be a vital port city along the eastern border of the United States.
And presently, it is world renown for its tourism due to the well managed
preservation of its buildings and monuments by the like of organizations such
as the Historic Savannah Foundation, as well as the Savanna College of Art
& Design, which began a process in 1979 of renovation and adaptive reuse of
many notable downtown buildings.

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To say that Savannah is a planned and designed city would be an understatement.
It is obvious to see this fact in the care taken to maintain the buildings and the
surrounding environment of this city. This notion of planning and design is
at the center of my thoughts concerning the creation of a large-scale wall
installation at SCAD. As a campus, SCAD is a beautiful and very idyllic setting,
perfectly composed and situated squarely within an established history of the
city. SCAD is so well kept that it appears to be hermitically sealed, and as
such, exists as a representation of perfection. And yet, when one looks closer
at the make-up of the buildings at SCAD, including its new Museum of Art,
one can see the city’s history superimposed onto it, and infused throughout
its structures. Not only utilizing basic building units that draw from it past
history of slavery (the Savannah Grey bricks at the building’s façade, and at
its foundation), the Museum is proudly situated within an area that embodies
an ongoing gentrification process. This is an amazing realization to see; an
institution that has been built to include all aspects of its history beyond the
notion of good and evil, and as such, it celebrates all that is real about its story
as an American city.

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The SCAD Museum of Art is at my epicenter of consideration. It is a space
that formally exists to house concerns of culture from the past, in as much
as the present, and it is meant as a space to educate its visitors of all these
considerations. The museum also exists as a learning tool for the students at
SCAD; as a showcase of culture and history, its purpose is to generate ideas
for students to consider possibilities for a better future. At best, the SCAD
Museum of Art is a harbinger of change. In my installation, I want to celebrate
this building, and its reason for being.