Variety of RIT artists chosen for Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition at Memorial Art Gallery

Professor creates interactive memorial to Black people of Rochester’s past; among 28 members of the RIT community selected for exhibition

A. Sue Weisler

W. Michelle Harris, associate professor in RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media, is one of 28 members of the RIT community who had pieces selected for the 67th Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery.

W. Michelle Harris, an associate professor in RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media, enjoys starting conversations through art and interactive pixelcraft. That’s why she created In Their Wake, an interactive digital memorial to the forgotten Black people who developed Rochester.

This fall, her art was selected for the 67th Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition, the region’s longest-running juried exhibition. In fact, Harris is one of 28 members of the RIT community who had pieces selected for the exhibition, which runs through Oct. 17 at the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG).

The exhibition showcases new work in all media by emerging and established artists from 27 counties in western and central New York.

At first, In Their Wake appears to be a video projection of a large turquoise painting. But, as spectators walk by, a camera tracks their movement and the fog begins to clear and reveal the tides of Lake Ontario and the names of hundreds of Black people who lived in Rochester before the end of the Civil War.

“Black people were present in Rochester during these times,” said Harris. “Some as servants or enslaved members of white settler households, some had escaped from elsewhere to find a fraction of freedom, and some worked on the Underground Railroad helping others escape to the endpoint at Lake Ontario.”

“Today there are only faint echoes of their presence in the land and water, but we exist in their wake,” Harris said. “I wanted to create a direct connection between the people then and the people now.”

The idea started when Harris read articles about rediscovered black graveyards in her Virginia hometown. She wanted to find ways to remember the first Black people who lived in Rochester, N.Y., prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. She was inspired by the book In The Wake: On Blackness and Being.

Harris wasn’t going to find these names on Ancestry.com, so she made her way to the Central Library of Rochester. There, she worked with staff to find public records from the establishment of the city. These segregated directories held the names, occupations, ages, and other information about a few hundred Black people living in Rochester.

The professor said that students in the new media interactive development courses she teaches—and other majors at RIT—can mix their technical and creative skills to develop unique experiences like this. Harris will discuss her creative process as part of a featured Artist Talk held 6-8 p.m. Oct. 7 at the MAG.

Other members of the RIT community selected for the 67th Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition include: