This Land is Your Land

Prayers for Flint by Karen Hampton

Karen Hampton is an artist and educator who primarily works with naturally-dyed textiles. In the early 2000s, Hampton found some long-lost family documents and rediscovered a long line of ancestors that she had never known. The stories she found have driven her art ever since. One document, in particular, recalled the life of one of Hampton’s ancestors named Flora, who was born a slave in Florida in the late 1700s. George J.F. Clarke, the son of British settlers, bought Flora and, by the early 1800s, granted her and their eight children freedom, education, and an inheritance of 33,000 acres of land. Flora’s female descendants fought racism to hold the family’s land rights well into the 20th century. Hampton describes how “the women in my family took so much battering, and they were incredibly strong. It seems like my ancestors were just waiting for me to come along, to bring them back to life.” 

“Each time my weft crosses the warp or my needle pierces the cloth, I reach through another layer of scorched earth that slavery has left behind, and I attempt to reframe the issues of race that haunt our modern lives.” - Quote from Stitching Race, presented in the 2012 Textile Society of America


Prayers for Flint memorializes the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which sickened the majority Black city where 40% live in poverty. During a three-month residency, Hampton worked with Flint residents to understand the crisis and its physical and emotional effects. The outcome was artworks such as this, which she describes as an expression of thanks towards the people who shared their lives and stories with her. She dyed squares of fabric with samples of the polluted water she collected during her travels. The pairings of masks on the textile’s four corners are modeled after an African initiation mask she saw on display at the Flint Institute of Arts. The bottle tree in the center references those found in the American South on African American homesteads, fashioned to trap evil spirits and protect the land. Lastly, the heart-shaped symbol is Sankofa, a Yoruba symbol and word that means “to remember your past so you do not have to repeat it.” These symbols and representations trace the lineage of history that led to the water crisis in Flint and offer hope, protection, and prayers for a better future.

The immediate problems that lead to the Flint Water Crisis began in 2014, when the city of Flint changed it water supply to the Flint River to cut costs. Almost immediately, the residents of Flint - a majority black city where 40% of people live in poverty - started noticing something was wrong with their water. 
 

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