In the fall of 1968 IU graduate student Clarence “Rollo” Turner, in collaboration with other African-American students and faculty, opened a new store in Bloomington. Situated near campus on Kirkwood Avenue, The Black Market sold books, clothing, records, artwork and other crafts made in Africa or by African-Americans. Turner envisioned the store less as a profit-making enterprise and more as a gathering place for students who did not have a place that was uniquely for them. Campus groups and faculty were widely supportive of Turner’s efforts, but reactions to the shop were decidedly mixed among members of the community and even some students. Soon after the store opened, Rollo Turner and other black students reported receiving threatening phone calls, and an editor of the Indiana Daily Student was visited by KKK members who were not happy about unfavorable press.
Early in the morning of December 26, 1968 The Black Market was firebombed, destroying the entire store. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a white male throw a burning container through the window and driving away. There was little doubt that the crime was racially motivated, as The Black Market was the only business attacked. The attack caused tensions to completely boil over in the following days and weeks. In a rally outside the charred shell of the business on January 10, Turner, Kenny Newsome and other students expressed their outrage at the firebombing and other injustices. During his speech Turner declared that peace between the races was dead, and that henceforth Black students were going to “live by the law of God, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”* No violence resulted from the rally, but the message was clear to the administration: larger strides had to be taken to end discrimination or things would get worse for everyone. The incident also forced the city of Bloomington to recognize that violent racism was still very much alive in their part of Indiana, and could not be ignored. Two local men, both KKK members, were ultimately arrested, tried and found guilty of the firebombing. A third man, a Grand Dragon in the regional KKK, was arrested in the same sweep and was tried on weapons charges. Although various groups collected enough money to help Turner pay for the loss of goods in his store, the Black Market was never reopened.
FLTNG is a public space of reflection, presentation, and conversation, poised on the Northwest corner of Bloomington’s People’s Park where the black market once stood. The armature of the space is a twisted and twisting structural carapace, composed of metal tubing skinned in mylar and AI-generated imagery. The armature stretches 30 feet along South Dunn street and is just short of 7 feet tall, presenting a quixotic façade-like presence to the street, while acting as a performance backdrop within People’s Park. The space around the armature encourages curious dialogue and intimate interaction, both with the object and with fellow members of the public. A portion of the armature transforms into a decorated stage for performances, then folds back into the piece of art when not needed.
About the team
FLTNG is the result of a collaboration between Dorian Bybee, Bo Choi, and Maria Hamilton Abegunde, with help from research assistant Faith Buskirk.
Dorian Bybee is a graduate of Ball State University, and has a Masters in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. He has worked at several Architectural offices including; Architectonics in New York City, MSKTD in Indianapolis, Griffin Enright Architects in Los Angeles, and Zaha Hadid Architects and Graft Architects in Beijing. His professional experience has included healthcare projects, schools, high end residential work, and large scale mixed use projects, and most recently has focused on R&D and cutting edge digital fabrication utilizing Indiana limestone. He currently teaches at the Interior Design Program of the Eskenazi School in Indiana University as a lecturer.
Dr. Abegunde is a memory keeper, poet, and doula. She uses the arts, contemplative practices, and ritual to explore ways to heal trauma through community, collaborative, and co-creative practices. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and essays have been recently published in the journals Obsidian, Tupelo Quarterly, and FIRE!!!; in the books SO WE CAN KNOW: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth, ASHE: Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Expressivity, and Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue; and in the exhibitions Be/Coming, Keeper of My Mothers’ Dreams, and Sister Song. Dr. Abegunde is a Cave Canem, Sacatar, Black Earth Institute, and NEH Summer Institute fellow. She is a faculty member in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.
Bo Choi is a fashion designer and innovative artist. With a primary focus on new media art and fashion design, she envisions clothes as both renderings explicitly their capacity to represent the self, as well as building upon, and breaking with, past conventions to allow an endless refashioning of the self disallowed by the limited vocabulary of much art and fashion today. For the last ten or more years, she has been known as a visual artist, a digital media artist, and a fashion designer and invited to numerous shows worldwide. She completed her MFA in 2009 in Fiber at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Her undergraduate studies were at the University of California, Davis, in Fashion Design and Studio Art. Previously, as a fashion designer, she created a fashion line that explores and transgresses the typical ways the body contour interacts with clothing. Choi's solo fashion show "Second Skin" was presented at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle. She was a finalist at the InspirAsain Fashion Competition, hosted by International Examiner, where her wearable art line was presented at the Bell Harbor Conference Center. Internationally she has given her designs at the Wearable Art Awards in Port Moody, BC, Canada, and was invited to Spell on the City, The 7th Seoul International Media Art Biennale. In addition, she had residencies at Kulturprojekte in Berlin, Germany, and at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences in GA with The Rogers Fellowship for Textiles Arts at NMAR in Seoul, South Korea. She taught design for over ten years at Sanford-Brown College, Seattle, and computer graphics design/digital art at North Seattle College. Also, she was a faculty at Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University, Bloomington. Gallery IMA in Seattle represents her. Currently, she is a professor of practice at Tulane University.
Faith Buskirk is a recent graduate of Indiana University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Interior Design. She is filled with enthusiasm and a strong sense of purpose to embark on a career dedicated to sustainable and inclusive design. Throughout her academic journey, she has been inspired by the transformative power of design in creating spaces that not only enhance the physical environment but also have a positive impact on individuals and communities. Her interior design work aims to create spaces that are accessible, welcoming, and empowering for people of all abilities, backgrounds, and ages.
