Brunswick, Ga.
‘Marsh Ruins’ (1981) by Beverly Buchanan
Near the Georgia coast, Beverly Buchanan created a sculpture that most people walk by without noticing. “Marsh Ruins” consists of three concrete mounds covered with tabby, a mixture of oyster shells, sand and water. She placed the work near Igbo Landing, where, in 1803, an estimated 75 people died by suicide rather than submit to enslavement. “It’s emotionally and spiritually extremely charged, but it’s a monument that refuses to announce itself,” says the French sculptor Marguerite Humeau, 39, who makes art in and about nature. The project, she adds, invites questions that aren’t always explored in conventional land art, such as “Who is given a voice through monuments and who isn’t?”