Jamel Robinson

I Walked The Longest Mile To Get To Nowhere Still

In his sculptures and assemblages, Jamel Robinson repeatedly uses combinations of sand, rice, pennies, cotton, rope, chains, wood, glass, and other objects that gesture to an ongoing history of oppression. The materials in I Walked The Longest Mile To Get Nowhere Still, are deep with meaning and rich in story, as outlined by the artist himself: “I add texture to an abstract practice, creating dialogue about change that still hasn’t been fully realized for Black people. The pennies represent the devaluation of African Americans who are overlooked, much as pennies themselves are; enslaved Africans had to cross sand when taken to America, arriving penniless, forced to work and labor, and then left without resources. Rice is used for its history being stored away in the hair of enslaved individuals as a means of securing food or traded as currency. Both rice and cotton are the products of slave labor. The boots strewn on the ground symbolically portray the constant fight for systemic equality. My work welcomes material questions, addressing truths behind historical issues of race inequities that may have changed in shape but are still the pulse of our country today.”