Stephen Montoya
It’s been over a hundred years since Fort Worthian Fred Rouse was lynched by an angry mob on the corner of NE 12th Street and Samuels Avenue. This dark segment of our city’s history is now the basis for a new art exhibition called “Shelter in Place”, which is on display at the East Fork Gallery of the Tarrant County College Trinity River campus. This exhibition consists of an immersive environment originally created by Adam W. McKinney who deconstructs elements of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot to inquire into the effects of anti-Black racial violence and historical trauma. The idea for this subject began when McKinney found out that Rouse’s murder had largely been forgotten. With few historical archives to draw upon, the artist collaborated with Diné photographer Will Wilson and Director Daniel Banks to stage tintypes wherein McKinney dressed as Rouse in traumatic sites associated with the atrocity.
Basically, what McKinney did was walk in Rouse’s shoes or footsteps in this matter. McKinney posed for various tintype photographs in the locations that Rouse was beaten, hanged, and eventually put to rest. The irony of the cemetery photo is Rouse had no headstone to mark his grave. Instead, McKinney poses in period perfect clothing, almost like a ghost in place of where Rouse would’ve been over 100 years ago. The passage of time is evident in each photo, with contemporary elements visible of our modern age lining some the backgrounds of each photo. The interactive side of this exhibit can be seen after downloading a QR code that allows viewers to watch McKinney dance and move in each picture.
"When I arrived in Fort Worth, Texas, I learned of the 1921 racial-terror lynching of Mr. Fred Rouse," McKinney says. "As I began to delve deeper into this undertold history, I asked individuals, organizations, and institutions what they knew about Mr. Fred Rouse. I soon realized that most had little to no information. Therein began my journey to remember Mr. Fred Rouse. With Will and Daniel Banks, I traveled to each of the five Fort Worth locations associated with the racial-terror lynching. Through choreography and photography, I used my body to remember Mr. Rouse by transporting my body across space and time, linking the anti-Black racial terror violence enacted upon Mr. Rouse to all the ways my own body has been, and is, targeted by racism.
Other parts of this experience include the view of an eerie old school box television in a corner that displays a Ku Klux Klan movie on a loop with questions that pop up in between runs that ask viewers how we can forget certain things from our past. On the south wall near the entrance of the room, is a prompt that reads “How do we heal?” This prompt is surrounded by a stack of small pieces of paper that are meant to be written on by the viewers and hung up on the wall thus adding to this specific work’s size and evolution.
Stephen Montoya
“Ironically, if we look out of these windows, you can actually see some of these very sights from the photos,” says professor of art at Tarrant County College, Janae Corrado. “This was something that took place not even two miles down the street.”
According to Corrado, the responses from students and attendees at this exhibit has been one of reflection.
“Obviously this is a heavy topic,” she says. “I find a lot of people just come into this space and pause and think and try and take it all in because this art is different from what a lot of these students have seen before.”
Corrado says she applauds the three artists for collaborating on this exhibit because of how much they are teaching the next generation about the forgotten past. This includes Rouse’s actual ancestors. “Adam mentioned during one of his presentations last year that Fred Rouse’s grandchildren didn’t even know about what he had gone through,” she says with tears in her eyes. “Apparently, they didn’t talk about it, and I can understand, that’s hard … that’s a hard conversation to have.”
“Shelter in Place” will be on display until March 8th, with a closing reception on Monday, March 6 beginning at 5:30 pm. Reception attendees will have the opportunity to hear from the artists themselves, as well as discuss the works on display.
