on “don’t blink”
this is the visual component of my project, which is inspired by the poem i wrote to set the scene. making these gifs was a very time consuming process because i did everything in the gifs from scractch: i took the photos, drew the writings and the figures, and created effects on every frame that made up the gifs.
my thought process in capturing and selecting each images was to get different angles of that particular scene. for instance, the first gif, “auction block,” presents the different angles to the slave auction block in downtown fredericksburg. after selecting the frames, i decided that i needed to add text or images to the gifs so that the audience can have some context, seeing as how everyone may not be privy to the places or their relevance to the story i am creating.
additionally, i wanted to create a story from one gif to the next. in the “auction block,” the last frame reads enslaved people were sold here in faded white brush strokes, and in “fred,” in white store-sign font is history is a cycle, both referencing the historical presence of anti-blackness in fredericksburg virginia and its modern recurrence. next, the gif “alley” presents a human figure and the writing peace love & justice demonstration @4pm @dupont, hinting to a new location for the story, which is presented in the gif “dupont,” wherein a demonstration and speeches seem to be taking place.
these gifs are meant to visualize what the audience has read and listened to, in regards to this story series.