The Tender Work of Preserving Renee Good’s Memorial
A traveling photographer has decided to stay in Minneapolis to care for the hundreds of artworks, objects, and messages left in memory of the poet and mother.
Ryan Vizzions, a photojournalist from Atlanta, had already arrived in Minnesota when federal immigration agents murdered poet and mother Renee Nicole Macklin Good.
For the last five years, the traveling photographer has been living out of his small van as he travels across the country for a photo survey exploring what it means to be American in all 50 states. He was taking photos at Lake Superior when he learned of Good’s killing, and drove immediately to the street where agents shot Good in her car. He arrived in time for a massive vigil held in Good’s memory.
Nearly two months after Good’s murder, Vizzions is still in Minnesota, but his focus has shifted from observation to intervention. He is now the de facto archivist of Good’s memorial site, where mourners have left hundreds of devotional objects, short notes, and artwork in protest and in grief.
"I want to make sure people in the future understand what happened here,” Vizzions told Hyperallergic in an interview.
So far, Vizzions has photographed about 200 items and relocated fragile objects to what he described as a “secret location” in the southern part of the city.
He’s left behind some items, including plastic signs, for the public to view. Alongside community members, Vizzions is maintaining the site, including by removing what he described as hundreds of pounds of decaying flowers.
Among the items Vizzions has documented is a note signed by an employee of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the agency driving the Trump administration’s escalating immigration enforcement tactics.
“Ms. Good,” the message reads, “We will never forget you. Rest in peace and power. Your work on earth is done. Your legacy lives on.”
The card, which is covered in stickers, is signed, “A DHS employee.”
“That was probably the most surprising because that's somebody who is involved with the same institution that ultimately killed her,” Vizzions told Hyperallergic.
Vizzions made the leap from outside observer to active participant in Minneapolis’s response to Good’s murder after someone attempted to burn the memorial site and extreme winter conditions set in, threatening to destroy the makeshift monument.
On February 18, someone poured gasoline on the memorial and lit a flame. Vizzions said that he and a group of community members watching over the site at night were able to stop the fire from spreading.
While Vizzions has previously photographed political apexes, including Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock, he said he had never before inserted himself in the communities he covers.
“ As a photojournalist, oftentimes you're divided from the community because you’re on the outside looking in,” Vizzions said. “And I wanted to serve.”
Vizzions told Hyperallergic that Good’s parents are aware of his project and that he is in communication with a family friend who is serving as a mediator. Ultimately, Vizzions said, he will respect the family’s wishes for any next steps for the collection. He expects that some of the items could end up in the collections of private institutions or in the archives of the Smithsonian, but noted that whatever happens next will not be his decision to make.
In the meantime, he is photographing and digitizing items from Good's vigil so that anyone can experience them, regardless of where they live.
"It's really important for me to make sure that the folks who couldn't be here, and the family who couldn't come to the vigil because of everything happening, are able to access the memorial in person or online," Vizzions said.
The photographer recalled one snow-covered note that made him cry. It read: “ We all carry whistles now. I hope you hear them. I hope you're home. We all carry each other now. I know you're with us. I know you're home.”
The message is a nod to activists' use of whistles to alert community members of potential immigration raids.
"It was just on a small note that was tucked somewhere," Vizzons said. "But that's just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of items that people have left. It's that message and the other message that really make it feel like we have an obligation to protect these offerings that people brought to her."
