On Solitude is a parallel and contemporaneous anthology shadowing Darell Fields’s theoretical treatise, Architecture in Black. These visual artifacts depict the interplay of different sign systems including Black language traditions, visual formalisms, and architecture. The exhibit includes pivotal works fulfilling the promise of Black architecture theory since 2000.

I live with each artifact in different places of memory. This is the first time they are shown together. The story they tell is unexpected. Before, the exhibition, I thought Blackness’s intersection with architecture represented epic struggle and conflict. The conflict remains true in what the exhibition has to say (to me) but there is a critical difference. The artifacts, interacting together, signify and witness architecture’s subtle, yet persistent, unraveling. Patiently Blackness pulls on architecture thread by thread. As a result, in the space of this latest exhibit, architecture is slowly becoming something else. Blackness, itself, is a process of unraveling and becoming. To have Black reality reflected in the work is an unforeseen gift. Perhaps I have been too close to see it.