Within Charlotte’s Mint Museum lies a gray, drab room containing murals, paintings, walls for audience stories, a short film, poetry, and numerous white dresses. These parts come together to form “The Communion of White Dresses,” the product of cooperation between North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green—who wrote a poem of the same name inspiring the exhibition—and mixed media artist Monique Luck. They depict white dresses as white patriarchal instruments of control, revealing key truths about the humanities, justice, and the relationship between the two.
It’s no secret that humanities disciplines frequently collaborate. “The Communion of White Dresses,” the creative offspring of an artist and a poet, perfectly encapsulates that concept. The exhibit’s many mediums reflect this collaboration, featuring art, film, poetry, audience reflection, and the eponymous white dresses. Plus, the exhibit’s opening ceremony featured an accompanying dance performance.
Consequently, as the artists aim to demonstrate and challenge white dresses’ powerful symbolism, they have an incredible toolbelt to work with. As metaphors for the constriction of white dresses on women’s freedom, the artists used physically constrictive dresses and poetic lines like “white dresses woven with shards of prisms so tight the waist becomes a prison” (Shelton Green 16-17). This granted me an embarrassment of riches to engage with to understand the exhibition. Where words failed, I had paintings. Where two-dimensional art fell short, I had real dresses. Where fabric couldn’t tell a full story, I had visitors’ memories. I didn’t just see white dresses through “conventional” mediums like art and poetry. I got to experience its dual beauty and rigidity through stories within each pristine dress and chalk-etched story.
Central to the creators’ message about white dresses is our course theme: justice. They view these dresses as tools for societal control cloaked in pageantry. The exhibit reflects this outlook in many ways, from the poem’s trauma to the room’s cold atmosphere to an open casket containing a white dress. Juxtaposed with the dresses’ beauty, these advance the idea that white dresses celebrate female purity at the expense of liberty.
The first step towards enacting justice is recognizing injustice. Through touches like hooks preventing a veil’s free movement, the artists underscore the tyranny of tradition, empowering audiences to rethink their relationships with white dresses and promote justice. Rather than forcing a singular narrative, they enable viewers to interpret their unique connections with white dresses by leaving the question “What memories are activated by white dresses?” on a blank wall. To engage viewers in a hands-on way, they leave chalk for visitors to share their own stories and conceptualizations of what white dress justice—or injustice—means.
Combining the two key ideas of our course and this exhibition, “The Communion of White Dresses” advances justice within the humanities in three ways.
First, it helps tear down traditional barriers in the humanities by amplifying an underrepresented group in the field: Black women. Men and white women enjoy more opportunities to muse about both white dresses themselves and associated traditions like marriage and communion. The poem refers to the “Black promise to erase this white stain,” adding a new perspective to existing scholarly ideas on white dresses (Shelton Green 19). Exhibits like this contribute to a more thoughtful, complete, just world of humanities by bringing more different voices to the table.
Secondly, through its wall for audience stories about their relationships with white dresses, the exhibit introduces a more inclusive, just model for humanities works. Typically, we’re separated into two categories: creators and consumers, players and spectators. Few get to play the game—most just sit on the sidelines. “The Communion of White Dresses” blurs that line, delivering justice to the bulk of society that never gets to put their handprint on widely consumed humanities works. Whether you see white dresses as oppressive (as one wall author who referred to “hypocritical worship of virginity”) or magical (as another who wrote simply “the joy of a little girl”), you have a voice at the Mint.
Finally, by granting free admission on Wednesday nights, the Mint furthers its artists’ diverse participation goal. Compared to her other Mint visits, my AT viewed this audience during free admission Wednesday as strikingly diverse racially and age-wise. This contributes to a more just exhibit: seeing as one of its key pillars is viewer experiences, reducing feedback to white, older visitors creates a one-dimensional installation. It’s only by drawing varied perspectives to the museum that the Mint can create justice, adding to walls of white dress experiences as diverse as Charlotte itself.
Works Cited
Shelton Green, Jaki. “The Communion of White Dresses.” The Fight & The Fiddle, Spring 2021, fightandfiddle.com/issues/jaki-shelton-green/. The Communion of White Dresses. 4 Sep.-27 Oct. 2024, Charlotte Mint Museum Uptown, North Carolina.
Images
Photo Credits: Kiera Sanders (first picture), Emma McDonnell (second picture), Neta Ariely (third and fourth pictures)
