Neon Ghosts, Merry Oak

2022 | Wall-Mounted Neon, Oak Bark | 1080p HD Video | Color | Silent | Looping | 00:12:05

Located in a field at the Historic Smithfield plantation in Blacksburg, VA, the Merry Oak was a massive white oak with special importance for the enslaved people at the plantation in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as their descendants. Situated in a flax field, the tree was the sole source of shade where people toiled. It saw generations come and go, survived wars, and witnessed emancipation. So few testaments remain to connect living people to the lives of the enslaved people in Southwestern Virginia. The details of their complex, unimaginable lives are too-often erased, narratives violently distilled to a set of initials, notes on property transfer, maybe a grave, full stories forever lost. To visit the Merry Oak was a powerful proximity, a context for time travel, a connection to people across generations, their joys, sufferings, dreams, and humanity. They were there, beneath the tree. They spoke and sang and rested in its shade. The Merry Oak was harmed by a lightning strike in 2018, and then in 2020, waterlogged and decayed by days of rain, it oak finally fell. Large pieces of the tree’s gnarled wood shattered upon intact, broken branches gouged wet earth. Weaver visited and filmed at the site of the fallen tree on day of its discovery. This two-part project features a single-channel looping, silent vertical video, positioned adjacent to a wall-mounted sculpture. A piece of the shattered Merry Oak is backlit by haint blue neon— a special color for both summoning and soothing ghosts. Hopefully they’re resting, feeling witnessed and duly respected.