Dawoud Bey: 9.15.63

Showing in the 1275 Media Room.

Presented by the Rena Bransten Gallery.

The single channel HD video, 9.15.63, is an evocative meditation on the tragic Sunday morning of September 15, 1963 that unfolds in four empty and quiet social spaces in the Birmingham community while simultaneously suggesting the passage from the four girls’ homes to the 16th Street Baptist Church that Sunday morning. The video is meant to evoke a quiet Sunday morning that recalls and alludes to the morning of the church bombing.

Each of the fours social spaces—a black beauty parlor, a black barbershop, a luncheonette, and a school classroom—each have their own varied histories and narratives. The beauty parlor and the barbershop are meant to suggest intimate black social spaces, places where blacks could safely interact with other blacks in a shared environment and experience. The luncheonette and classroom allude to the highly contested social spaces, as neither lunch counters nor public schools were integrated or hospitable to the black presence. The slowly moving camera lingers over the surface of these spaces providing an intimate and heightened experience of the momentarily abandoned locations, enveloped in a suspended quietude.

Conceived, Directed, and Edited by Dawoud Bey. Commissioned by The Birmingham Museum of Art Music. Composed and Performed by Ramon Alvarez-Smikle. Production Six Foot Five Productions.

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