Project by Omar Ismail, Didier Lucceus @omarIsmail.
The Flatbush African Burial Ground is situated within a broader network of burial grounds that have been systematically and unjustly removed across New York, and is positioned here as a hub and prototype linking landscape stewardship, archival work, and civic infrastructure. The site incorporates the movement of remains, archival materials, and soil, supporting a distributed archive of death and burial. Through this, the project expands the notion of descendants beyond direct lineage and introduces space for contemporary burial, reflection/mourning/celebration, and alternative forms of knowledge production. The methodologies by which remains are handled, protected, and ritualized are interrogated to restore dignity and prevent further dispossession, as the site is understood as continuously built and continuously archived over time. The accumulation and movement of soil sits at the core of the project linking the past history of violence towards the dead with a future of commemoration and care.
