When a casting commission arrives at Maybrey, it usually comes with a drawing, a specification, and a delivery date. The Black Renaissance project arrived with something more: a brief that carried the weight of history.
The Equal Justice Initiative
The Black Renaissance sculptures were commissioned by the Equal Justice Initiative, the Alabama-based civil rights organisation founded by Bryan Stevenson. The EJI is best known in the UK for Stevenson's book and film Just Mercy and for the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama: the first memorial in the United States dedicated to the victims of lynching. The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, where the Black Renaissance sculptures now stand, is the EJI's next major undertaking on the same site.
What the Project Represents
The park is dedicated to exploring the lived experience of the millions of Black people enslaved in America, honouring their courage and resilience, and celebrating the contributions that history so often failed to record. The Black Renaissance series, conceived by artist Rayvenn Shaleigha D'Clark, does exactly what its name suggests: it asserts the presence, the creativity, and the humanity of people whose stories were systematically suppressed.
The five sculptures depict anonymous figures: not named individuals but composite representations of the unnamed. Each is unique. Each carries the detail and dignity that the historical record too often denied the people it represents.
Why It Matters That These Castings Were Made in Bronze
Bronze is the material of monuments. It is the material that says: this matters, this should last, this should be seen by people who are not yet born. The choice to cast the Black Renaissance sculptures in silicon bronze was not incidental. It was an assertion that these figures belong in the landscape of permanent public art, on equal terms with any other monument.
Producing those castings at the technical standard the work required was, for our team, a privilege. We are a foundry that has been making things for 177 years. The Black Renaissance project reminded us that what we make can matter beyond the technical specification.