Laurie Beth Clark
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Art (4-D).
For more information, visit LaurieBethClark.art
Quanda Johnson
‘Through The Ballad of Anthony Crawford: Remix series’, Quanda Johnson interrogates violence on Black bodies and psyches because of systemic racism in hegemonically controlled spaces. Quanda's paternal ancestor, Anthony Crawford, was lynched by a mob of 400 white citizens in Abbeville County, South Carolina on Saturday, October 21, 1916. As a result of this one seminal act of violence, her family was chased out of Abbeville County and scattered throughout the eastern seaboard, as far west as Evanston, Illinois. Anthony Crawford had been the wealthiest man, black or white, in Abbeville County. Quanda's family lost all of their wealth, their land, and their sense of civic justice. The memory of this act lives in the marrow of their familial bones, blood memory, and as they wander, they wonder, "What does it mean when I do not own the right to my own body, my own life? How much agency must I surrender in exchange for my life?"