A Poetic Tribute to Ona Judge Is Coming to Philadelphia
The new work at the ArtPhilly festival will honor Judge, who fled enslavement by the Washington family, and Rem'mie Fells, a Black transgender woman murdered in 2020.
When the Trump administration removed exhibits about slavery from a Philadelphia historic park earlier this year, the city met the federal government with a defiant lawsuit. Among the targeted displays was an artwork portraying Ona Judge, who fled enslavement from George and Martha Washington.
While the legal battle over the work advances, a Philadelphia cultural festival plans to unveil a sprawling temporary monument next month commemorating Ona Judge’s escape from the captivity of the United States’s first presidential family in 1796. As part of ArtPhilly, a new festival founded by Philadelphia Museum of Art trustee Katherine Sachs, New York-based conceptual artist indira allegra will debut a trio of schooner sails marking Judge’s escape on May 28 at Spruce Street Harbor.
The installation, titled Sail Through This to That, is timed to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence, a national celebration marking a tense moment for arts institutions grappling with presidential mandates to portray history favorably.
The sails also embody the neon aesthetics of Rem'mie Fells, a 27-year-old Philadelphia transgender woman who dreamed of becoming a fashion designer when she was horrifically murdered in 2020. Her killing prompted outcry from civil rights groups over a broader trend of violence against Black transgender women.
In a statement to Hyperallergic, allegra recalled conceiving of the neon sails around five years ago, when they first observed a connection between Judge’s work as a seamstress and Fells’s pursuit of self-expression through clothing.
At the time, Rob Blackson, ArtPhilly’s curator consultant, had just taken allegra on a tour of sites of transformation across Philadelphia.
“It was through this tour that indira was introduced to the lives of Ona Judge and Rem'mie Fells,” Blackson told Hyperallerigic. “They began to artistically weave the histories of these women into a work whose poetry and purpose were undeniable.”
In an email to Hyperallergic, the artist recounted arriving at a realization that local waterways connected Judge and Fells.
“I have a strong interest in working with sites that carry a lot of intense energy due to some historical event,” allegra told Hyperallergic. “That’s how I found Ona Judge's history as a seamstress intertwined with Rem'mie Fells's own desire for freedom expressed through clothing, and how the rivers surrounding Philadelphia connected them both through time and space.”
Judge, who was only 15 when Washington became president of the nascent United States, was one of several enslaved individuals he rotated in and out of Pennsylvania to elude the state’s emancipation laws. In 1796, Judge escaped while the Washingtons were on a vacation, fleeing Philadelphia on a ship for New Hampshire. The president continued to pursue her recapture until his death.
North Wind, the Delaware River schooner on which allegra’s interpretive sails will be unveiled, is comparable in size to Nancy, the boat by which Judge would flee the Washingtons.
Over two centuries later, Fells’s remains were discovered in the Schuylkill River, which intersects with the Delaware River in Philadelphia. In images published online, Fells is shown wearing bright yellows, pinks, purples, and blues, and donning signature burgundy hair. Sail Through This to That draws upon this same color palette in abstract, disjointed forms within the textile.
The sails took eight months to design and sew, a project overseen by Fabric Workshop Museum shopworks coordinator Olivia Dwyer and Dayle Ward, who creates sails similar to those produced in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Blackson said that to prepare for the project, allegra spent hours among Philadelphia's LGBTQ+ history in the archives of the local William Way LGBT Community Center, one of the installation's other collaborators. They also immersed themselves intimately in Fells’s memory.
“I'm deeply grateful to Terri Edmonds, Rem'mie's mom, for sharing so generously with me about her daughter's life and for offering her blessing for me to work with her daughter's story in this project,” allegra told Hyperallergic.
The title Sail Through This to That originates from the Lucille Clifton poem “Blessing the Boats" (2000).
While the installation contends with historical and individual tragedy, the artist said they wanted to pose an uplifting question to the public through their installation: "What do you want to spend the next five years loving so completely that it can blossom?"
"It isn't just about the end product, but how we express loving kindness to everyone along the way, from the security guard at the museum to the delivery person bringing needed tools and materials to make the sails themselves,” allegra told Hyperallergic.
The sails will remain on view until July 30, through the US semiquincentennial.
