The Sacred Ordinary
Footnotes
1. Origins
In 2016, 1504 began working with the Equal Justice Initiative to document its Community Remembrance Project, including the placement of historical markers and the collection of soil at lynching sites. Those experiences deepened our understanding of how memory becomes embedded in a place. Since then, 1504 has continued to tell place-based stories, working with Hotel Peter & Paul in New Orleans, Temple Beth-El, the Wallace Center for Arts & Reconciliation, and helping organize preservation efforts for Birmingham artist Joe Minter. The Sacred Ordinary grew out of those projects, and the challenges facing historic preservation in America today give it a new urgency.
2. Music
Jake Carnley composed the original music for The Sacred Ordinary. The three-part composition began with bioelectric signals from the cedar tree behind 16th Street Baptist Church, which were captured and translated into MIDI data. Carnley used analog and digital synthesizers, pianos, and field recordings from Kelly Ingram Park and the church steps. Those recordings ground all three pieces in the acoustics of the site and bring the place into the music as a witness with a memory and a voice. The composition is titled (The Sound of) The Sound of the Genuine, and the three track titles are drawn from Howard Thurman’s 1980 baccalaureate address at Spelman College.
3. Color
Each artifact in the installation is illuminated in a different color. We analyzed field recordings from the five locations and used the frequencies in each recording to identify a corresponding musical note. Those notes became the starting point for the colors, drawing on relationships between sound and light, Rosicrucian correspondences, and the chakra color system. While not an exact science, the colors are one way of listening to these places.
4. André Holland
Actor André Holland narrates the introduction. We invited him to collaborate because of his work preserving historic landmarks in his hometown of Bessemer, Alabama, including the Lincoln Theatre, which 1504 documented in 2024.
5. Joe Minter
The installation is dedicated to Joe Minter (b. 1943), a Birmingham artist whose work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Birmingham Museum of Art. Even with that recognition, his work has often been overlooked in Birmingham, and his outdoor art environment, African Village in America, faces ongoing threats from exposure to the elements. 1504 has helped organize preservation efforts for the site, and that work continues with funding from the Mellon Foundation.
6. Inspiration
Alongside Joe Minter’s work, these four works directly inspired the installation.
Here by Richard McGuire
Her Long Black Hair by Janet Cardiff
Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas by Denis Wood
untitled (Marfa project) by Dan Flavin
7. What Happens Next
The installation was created for Birmingham and currently has no current plans to travel; however, we see The Sacred Ordinary as a series that could continue and take new forms in other places.
Alongside the installation, we’re developing an initiative called Placekeepers with longtime Titusville resident Paula Stanton and other community leaders. The workshop and resource kit will draw on what residents already know about caring for places that hold their communities’ history and help them put that knowledge to work. We’re tentatively planning the first workshop in early 2027 with support from the National Parks Conservation Association. It will serve as a pilot for what could become an ongoing community-based preservation initiative.