Allensworth was the first self-governed African American community built in California in 1908, which became a ghost town barely twenty years after its founding. Established by Colonel Allen Allensworth, who was born into slavery, the village was among the first of its kind to emerge in a still largely segregated America, and also among the first to decline so rapidly as a direct result of systemic racism.
Each mirror presents a reconstruction of the interior or exterior architecture of one of the town’s houses. These structures were rebuilt and designated as a National Park fifty years after Allensworth’s disappearance .
Nelson Bourrec Carter is interested in what the house—an intimate living space, a form of architecture, and a geographic position—carries politically. His mirror prints attempt to rekindle the memory of those who envisioned the creation of this independent, utopian community.
