The Borough Project (2002)
Lacy worked with curator Mary Jane Jacobs over two consecutive Spoleto Festivals on a project centered around a small house still standing in the way of urban redevelopment of a formerly Black community in Charleston, South Carolina. For The Borough Project Lacy and artist/curator Tumelo Mosaka worked with a multi-layered coalition of organizations, artists, and grass roots activists to produce an installation in one of the two Borough Houses owned by two sisters whose property stood in the way of massive redevelopment plans. Year one consisted of an installation and media-based discourse centered on the intersection of hidden histories, current inequities, and redevelopment impacting former African-American residents of Ansonborough Homes. These borough houses included an installation of artifacts from displaced families of the former historic housing project. Reconvening former residents, calling attention to their history, and starting a youth program in the houses served as an occasion for discourse, and a reminder of an urban redevelopment process that ignored a neighborhood’s history and its people.
Latitude 32 Degrees (2003)
In a second and subsequent project, Lacy and Jacob were joined by artist Rick Lowe and architect Rob Miller to develop an installation in the empty Ansonborough Fields property adjacent to the Borough houses. Miller and his students designed and built concrete block platforms that marked the porches and foundation layout of former homes—one of the earliest middle class historic Black communities in the area--that were destroyed for future redevelopment of Charleston. During a one night performance, an audience gathered to view conversations from the porch of the Borough houses, the architectural installations in the fields, and finally to witness over 150 residents from all walks of life, including the Mayor, Congressman Jim Clyburn, a Gullah priestess and others, exploring issues of redevelopment, race, and equity in the South Carolina region.
