In February 2024 Black American sculptor Sandy Williams IV created a 6ft tall wax sculpture of Abraham Lincoln as he appears in the Lincoln Memorial. This work was commissioned by the city of Washington DC’s Public Art Building Communities Grant. The piece titled 40 ACRES: Camp Barker is equipped with candle wicks and instructions that encourage audiences to light up the sculpture for no more than 3 minutes. It is intended to be a social experiment — should anyone choose to set it on fire, they are only adding fuel to the erasure of a moment in Black history.
The piece ponders the increasingly forgotten history of enslaved African Americans. The experiment is a call to action for people to go against the societal current of erasure and preserve the more troubling parts of the past, so that they may never return today. However, in July 2024, climate change induced extreme heat waves in Washington DC had melted the sculpture before anyone had the chance to set it alight.
The piece was initially scheduled to remain on display until September 2024. With two months left on display, the piece would have been cause for celebration as the sculpture had managed to stay intact throughout the social experiment. This would have meant that symbolically, people intended to play their part in ensuring the preservation of Black history. Still, Sandy Williams IV had decided to keep the melted sculpture on display. He intends to highlight that this accident has only given the piece a new layer of meaning. It stands as a testimony to the urgent need for intersectional climate action, which includes people from all walks of life, lest there would be no one left to remember these shared histories. This is why 40 ACRES: Camp Barker by Sandy Williams IV is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of Reduced Inequalities and Climate Action.
In an Instagram post, Williams IV outlined just how staggering the phenomenon is. The sculpture was made with wax that will only melt at 140 degrees fahrenheit (60 degrees celsius). “It should not be this hot outside. The ways we are hurtling through all of the climate disaster projections, ceilings, and barriers should be unacceptable AND the roots of our problems go as far back (farther) as enslavement, Lincoln, and our failures to reconstruct. These roots, and our current social, political, and climate disasters, are also intrinsically related to the ongoing genocides, displacements, hyper-militarizations, and the global warfare that is empirically destroying our planet. It must end!” wrote Williams IV.
40 ACRES: Camp Barker by Sandy Williams IV serves as a compelling reminder of the interconnectedness of social justice and climate actions. The unexpected melting of the wax sculpture due to extreme heat waves highlights this urgent need for an intersectional approach to climate change that includes all communities, especially those who have been historically marginalized. At the end of the day, Williams IV’s piece preserves Black history while cautioning people of their perilous future, as humanity’s past enemies now stand against one of a planetary scale.
Find out more about wax sculptures by Sandy Williams IV and their other initiatives by checking their Instagram on @sandywilliams_iv.