40 ACRES: Weeksville

Skywriting Performance and Event | Brooklyn, NY | 2023

Sandy Williams IV’s photo and video installation documents 40 ACRES: Weeksville, a multilayered public performance that took place in the sky above Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Juneteenth 2023. A skywriter traced the borders of the historic Weeksville community—an area 492.72 acres in total—in the sky to honor the legacy of one of the first recognized free Black communities in the country, which occupied the location from 1838 to around 1930. This skywriting pays homage to the memory of Freedmen communities and acknowledges histories and social oppressions that are often unseen and paved over, by connecting current national inequities to the failures of Reconstruction in the United States after the Civil War.

The flyover took place in partnership with the Weeksville Heritage Center’s Juneteenth Food Festival. 40 ACRES: Weeksville was commissioned by The Shed as part of Open Call. It was developed in collaboration with the Weeksville Heritage Center and has been generously supported by the University of Richmond.

Sandy Williams IV, 40 ACRES: Weeksville, 2023. Video (color, sound), 18 min., with archival documents, inkjet photo prints and didactic takeaways. Installation view: Open Call 2023 Group Exhibition, The Shed, New York, November 4, 2023 – January 21, 2024.Commissioned by The Shed. Artwork © Sandy Williams IV. Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy The Shed.

40°N, 73°W remembers the history of Weeksville, one of the first recognized free Black communities in the US, and examines the US Reconstruction Era as it relates to today’s inequities and global communities.