The artists, city officials and community members had gathered along the busy footpath to celebrate the unveiling of the Gallery of Southwest, a new collection of murals designed to honor Southwest Washington.
The Southwest Business Improvement District chose the underpass as the canvas for the new public art to serve as a reminder of the 30,000 residents who were displaced by urban development in the 1950s and how urban renewal tore the Southwest community apart, said the district’s managing director Lexie Albe.
“Urban renewal was a very traumatic time for this community and I think a lot of those memories still exist down here,” Albe said. “The ability to reclaim the actual walls of the infrastructure that divided that community is really meaningful.”
Although the business improvement district and residents identified the underpass as a space for public art in 2005, the project did not begin until two years ago when the 11 different artists or groups submitted their design proposals.
“Southwest is such a diverse community, there’s no one experience of being here,” Albe said. “The opportunity to have 11 different artists with 11 different perspectives bring their story to life in this underpass, we’re hoping that it touches a little bit of everyone’s experience.”
Artist Kaliq Crosby drew inspiration from the photographs of Joseph Owen Curtis, a Southwest native and historian who spent decades capturing the everyday lives of Washingtonians. Crosby pored over hundreds of Curtis’s photos at the D.C. Library until one stood out: an image of Edward “Bub Jasper” Turner in his private uniform at a military drill competition when he served in the D.C. High School Cadet Corps.
Crosby said he included Turner in uniform as a reminder of the sacrifices young Black men have made for the United States. Crosby’s mural also portrays the streetcar that used to travel along 4th Street SW, which Crosby said represents “advancement and maturity for a young man and his journey to new experiences.”
A lifelong D.C. resident and proud graduate of Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Crosby said he wanted his mural to introduce passersby to an untold aspect of the city’s history.
“It’s the perfect way to engage people and give them some sense of culture and history and what the city is all about,” Crosby said.
While Crosby chose to highlight the accomplishments of specific D.C. natives, other artists like Rose Jaffe used abstract figures to convey their messages.
Jaffe’s mural, “Peak Bloom,” shows large human figures reaching out to one another amid a natural landscape. For Jaffe, the mural’s bold colors of blue, red and green evoke joy even in the dimly lit tunnel. The figures overlap, much like how living in a city as populated as D.C. intertwines residents’ lives in ways they may not even realize, Jaffe said.
“These figures to me are a representation to me of the larger collective of community,” Jaffe said. “They’re not anybody specific, they’re not any gender or race, so I’m hoping that anybody that comes by would be able to see themselves as part of this dynamic.”
Chelsea Henery and Sami Seezox painted bright pink snails sliding along flower stems with buildings on their shells for the project.
The duo — known as Ham and Cheese Studio — called the buildings “a love letter” to Southwest’s beautiful architecture. They chose hellebore flowers to symbolize duality and the bittersweet nature of development.
“We know that growth and progress can bring upheaval and disruption; nevertheless, flowers still bloom,” the pair wrote in their artist statement explaining the mural. “The imagery holds these truths in a way that honors the past, present and future of Southwest DC.”
Public art, the pair said, is public not only in the final product but also in progress. They both described community members approaching them as they painted to offer water, food or compliments. Whether it be their mural or the 10 others, Henery said she hopes the art adds joy into residents’ everyday commute.
“I want people to feel cared for,” Henery said. “Like someone paid attention to the fact that they have to pass by here every day.”