ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

I have been collecting Confederate commemorative plates since 2016 in response to the rise in white supremacist pride in contemporary culture. I imagine these objects as Trojan horses hanging innocently among family photos. These plates were printed long after the Civil War with romantic illustrations and created for people to hang in their homes, to pass dangerous values down to future generations aided by collectible marketing.

When I stumbled across my first set of plates in a tiny junk shop it felt like a call to action. I immediately envisioned using the porcelain cutting techniques I have mastered to grind out these harmful symbols of oppression.  I edit each plate by extracting the Confederate symbols, leaving only the American landscape between the voids. The dust from each removal is harvested and displayed below its plate of origin to show that history cannot be erased; there is still a residue and the dust still remains.

It wasn’t until I began this work that I learned that I have ancestors that fought and died for the Confederacy. Now this work is as much a rejection of systems of oppression as it is a reckoning about my own place in those systems.  Speeches like Douglas’s spoken over a century ago illustrate how little has changed and remind us not to settle for symbolic gestures of progress, there is still mighty work ahead.

— Elizabeth Alexander, 2022

My identity in relation to this topic has been something I have grappled with since before I made the work.It took me a long time to figure out how to address my culture shock in reaction to the open Confederate pride and white supremacy that seemed to surge with the 2016 election. I knew I wanted to confront it – it was a sickening revelation – but I felt for a while that it was not my place. Growing up in the Northeast made it easier to imagine that those were just fringe beliefs, because I didn’t see it openly displayed around me.

I struggled with an object-based approach that would stay true to my aesthetic and consistent with my unique voice. When I stumbled across this set of plates in a tiny junk shop it felt like a call to action: particularly because they were within my visual language of interrupting found porcelain.

I have ancestors that fought for the Confederacy. I did not learn about it until after I made this work. My family does not talk about it, and when they do it is explained as if they were tricked, or defending their land. The thought that living in the North was a pass for reckoning rapidly dissolved as I examined more about systemic racism. I was taught to live with empathy and kindness and believed that was enough. I left the uncomfortable conversations to activists.

A lot of my work examines the hidden ideologies and power structures taught, enacted, and reinforced within domestic spaces, and their ripple effect.These plates should not have existed. They were printed in 1971, long after the Civil War, and created for people to hang in their homes, and exemplify a subtle form of oppression and manipulation. They were created to pass dangerous values down to future generations through their precious packaging and “collectability.” This work is as much a rejection of systems of oppression as it is a reckoning about my own place in those systems, and the sanitized education and experience that blinded me. The truth is messy, and the dust still remains.

— Elizabeth Alexander, 2019