Redlining Our Souls by media artist Laura Di Piazza

Artist Laura Di Piazza (b. NYC) will exhibit work from her Redlining Our Souls (ROS) series, opening First Friday March 3 with the artist from 5-7pm and running through the month as the centerpiece of JAM’s March programming theme “Home in the World,” an examination of housing justice locally and globally.  ROS includes redlining maps and description language issued by the defunct government-sponsored Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) highlighting blatant and coded racist housing segregation practices. The racist attitudes and language found in HOLC appraisal sheets and Residential Security Maps created by the HOLC gave federal support to real-estate practices that helped segregate American housing throughout the 20th century. [1]

The exhibition also includes a slide projection highlighting racial covenants in property deeds that included restrictive clauses which prevent white homeowners from re-selling or renting to Black Americans. The altered segregation redlining maps and descriptions are paired with the artist’s abstracted integrative paintings.

JAM will be giving away 6 free copies of Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law.

[1] Freund, David M. P. Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America. University of Chicago Press, 2010. Accessed 4 February 2023.