Edifice and Mortar is an eight-foot wall made of bricks. On one side, the bricks are stamped with a custom maker’s mark which features the outline of a head with an afro bearing the word schiavo, Italian for “slave.” Within schiavo the letters “c,” “i,” “a,” and “o” are raised to spell ciao, which is the Italian greeting derived from the phrase s-ciào vostro—“I am your slave.” On the other side of the wall is selected text from the United States Declaration of Independence.

The mortar for the wall is made of hair gathered from African American barber shops, binding together the promises of equality written across the bricks while drawing attention to the history of transatlantic slavery, migration, and colonialism on which the nation is built. A blue mirror leaning against the wall conjures the image of a U.S. flag, while also reflecting the viewer, inviting each individual to consider their position within this paradox.

In the U.S. Constitution, Article 1. Section 2. (the “Three-Fifths Clause,” ratified in 1787) declared that any person enslaved would be counted as three-fifths of a free individual for the purposes of determining congressional representation. This clause remained in place until the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, which abolished slavery except “as a punishment for crime.”

In Clark’s Three-Fifths, three woven braids on the back of a white button-up shirt evoke nineteenth-century prison uniforms and critique the present economic and political ramifications of this legislation. Current voting laws in most states hold that individuals convicted of a felony are not allowed to vote during their sentence or while on parole, and in some cases permanently, even as they are still counted as residents for the purpose of determining representational districts.

Abacus and Counting Change refer to the Emancipation Proclamation, the presidential proclamation from 1863 which declares that all persons held as slaves “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Abacus is a sculptural work in the shape of the ancient calculating tool and featuring beads made from Clark’s hair. Counting Change, a stop motion video of Abacus in motion, is set to a soundtrack of Nina Simon’s Old Jim Crow and registers the passage of time from Emancipation Proclamation to the present: a sequence of still images show the beads of Abacus shift as they move to count the years.

Together, the works raise questions about whether emancipation has been truly achieved. As Clark states, “When the nation ended the Civil War, one of the things it had to contend with was: Are Black people going to be treated as people, as actual citizens? We are still answering that question.”