New work by Jamie Robertson

Make for High Ground examines the socio-political and spiritual relationship between Blackness, water, and memory. Robertson uses text, photography and video to explore Black identity, tracking the myriad histories of the Gulf states of Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama through the lens of waterways, both in passage and depth. If the South is a body, where does it carry its memory? If so much racialized violence and Black history has been lost to the history books, how might we remember? 

Below the surface, surrounded by the living presence of Water’s memory, the camera serves as entry into the spiritual realm. Water is personified, its bones counted and picked clean from its past. What remains? Waters I contemplates the horror of the Storm of 1900 in Galveston, Texas, honoring the Black residents who survived and helped in the aftermath. Waters II acknowledges the history of the slave ship Clotilda and honors the memory of those Africans who survived the journey and slavery to form Africatown in Mobile, Alabama. Waters III reflects on the history of segregation in Biloxi, Mississippi; remembering the wade-in of April 24, 1960. This installation gives voice to Water, revealing what it knows about the human condition.   

– Jamie Robertson, 2023

Make for High Ground is part of the Independent Projects program at Alabama Contemporary.  Jamie Robertson is a visual artist and educator from Houston, Texas. She earned a BA in Art and MFA in Studio Art with a concentration in photography and digital media from the University of Houston. She also holds an MS in Art Therapy from Florida State University. She is a former recipient of the American Art Therapy Association ‘Pearlie Roberson Award’ and Red Bull Arts Microgrant. Robertson is also one half of the podcast, Where I See Me, which examines the presence of Black and Brown people in comics and media. Her creative practice is rooted in the recollection of the personal and collective histories of the African Diaspora; with a particular interest in the Gulf South. Her work was featured in FORECAST 2021: SF Camerawork’s Annual Survey Exhibition, Where We Are at Art League Houston, and internationally at Exposure Photography Festival in Canada. Her photobook Charting the Afriscape of Leon County, TX was published in December 2020 with Fifth Wheel Press. She currently works as a Lecturer at Sam Houston State University.

OPENING DURING MAY ARTWALK

May 12 @ 6 PM

Generous funding for this exhibition and related programming is provided by: