Justyne Fischer, "The Implications of Blackness in Birth of a Nation"

Boston Athenæum

D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, glorified and revived the Ku Klux Klan in America. In contrast, Justyne Fischer’s woodcut examines the legacy of deep-rooted racism within American systems and institutions. Fischer’s Birth of a Nation renders the Klansmen as mountains, grand and carved into the American landscape. They are not hidden in the shadows or part of a long-forgotten practice—they are ingrained, established, and immovable. Join Fischer as she discusses the deliberate compositional choices she made to depict the dark side of American history and how it shaped us as a nation.