A Requiem for the Nation

Photograph by Tania L Abramson

A requiem is a mass for the souls of the dead, or an act of remembrance. The artists Vincent Valdez and Adriana Corral collaborated on the artwork, Requiem, 2016-2019, which was exhibited at BAMPFA in Berkeley, CA, in the Fall of 2022, as part of the exhibition, Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration. 

A bronze eagle lies wounded on the floor of the gallery, with ash rubbed into the surface to give the coal-black patina. It is encircled by a long black ribbon with phrases embroidered in gold letters: Thoughts and Prayers. Build the Wall. Freedom isn’t Free. We are the United States of Amnesia. In God We Trust, All Others We Monitor. To take it all in, you can’t help but to circle around this eagle in distress, seemingly taking its last breath, choking on these words that we hear daily, as democracy slips from our grasp, like the eagle losing its grip on the freedom it avowedly represents. The embroidered phrases come from multiple sources – from the gun-loving far right to those warning against oppression. We’ve heard them all before. Some we agree with, others we abhor. It depends on what side we are standing on and whose truth we choose to believe. What will we do? Confront the platitudes, reach across the divide, or just bury the dead and turn on the TV?

The ash patina on the eagle symbolizes disparate ideas – death, the death of the idea of democracy, but also care, the care it took to rub the ash into every detail, each feather, even inside the eagle’s mouth, bestowing it with a lustrous finish as if preparing the bird for its burial ceremony. It also evokes crude oil, like the many birds in need of washing after an oil spill, and those who never had a chance. On the other hand, the blackened eagle could be a stand in for America’s pursuit of oil, by any means necessary, causing environmental catastrophe, and leading many young people into wars to protect our interests only to discard their lives upon their hero’s return. While these interpretations may have some validity, when considering the theme of the exhibition, mass incarceration and its history, as a lens to view the work, it can only be read in one direction. One that helps the viewer to understand that we’ve been fed a string of lies, and it’s time to envision a world where freedom, democracy, justice, and opportunity are available to all, not just to protect and serve the capitalist status quo born out of slavery at the very beginning of this so-called democracy, before it is gone for good.