Rosa Naday Garmendia

The Commemoration Project began in August of 2014 and is ongoing. With this project I am interested in creating work that is relevant to conversations taking place regarding the role of the police, acts of racism, poverty, mass incarceration and ongoing military intervention abroad. It is an invitation for viewers to participate in a project that features process, social interaction, reflection, actions and objects.

This project fuses the lines of object making and painful visceral experiences. The driving impulse is my desire to honor the individuals that have died with the goal of ensuring that they are not forgotten. Experiencing the installation can serve as a tool for mourning, making meaningful connections and building understanding that will assist communities to move forward while maintaining a sense of connection with those whom we have lost.

I chose to begin with the year 1979 and the story of Arthur Lee McDuffie, a 33-year-old salesman who was brutally beaten to death by a group of police officers with nightsticks and flashlights, later acquitted by an all-white jury—a grave injustice that resulted in what some describe as the Miami Riots of 1980.