Kapwani KiwangaGreenbook series [incorporates a set of 52 framed works consisting of 139 archival pigment prints], 2019
‘The Greenbook 1961’ is a suite of 52 framed works. The source material comes from the 1961 issue of The Traveler’s Green Book; an annual state-by-state listing printed from 1936-1966. The publication served as a resource for African-American motorists traveling across the USA providing safe houses at which to stop whether they be lodgings, restaurants, or service stations. Kiwanga focuses on 1961, the year in which the Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights activists, rode public interstate buses from Washington D.C. into the south to challenge the unconstitutional standard of keeping public buses segregated. Kiwanga erases information from archival scans with the exception of the state name and address. The resulting prints generate a minimal topography of a particular space and time.
