Kambui Olujimi: Zulu Time exhibition catalog

private strategies that effectively sorted and zoned the population by
race. 6 We also ignore the fact that this “urban renewal” plan did not
set forth an adequate strategy for funding and maintaining its massive
public housing project, nor did it stimulate the economic development
necessary for Pruitt-Igoe’s residents to financially succeed. Instead, by
tying the structural upkeep of the building to the tax base of its residents,
city leaders all but guaranteed a continuing cycle of poverty and
deterioration. Further, the 57-acre site within which the 33 apartment
complexes were situated was never integrated into the infrastructure
of downtown St. Louis: the original architectural plans for traffic and
pedestrian thoroughfares connecting Pruitt-Igoe’s community to the
larger city were deemed too expensive to execute. Thus, Pruitt-Igoe and
its inhabitants were left to live in what became a wasteland of concrete
towers isolated from the larger world—a metaphorical prison. 7
Olujimi explores the connection between human economies
and imprisonment in another body of work within the exhibition, a
series of altered handcuffs collectively titled Killing Time. Rather than
being joined by a chain these cuffs are linked together with ornamental
strands of rhinestones and costume jewelry, thereby transforming an
object of restraint into one of wearable fashion. The physicality of these
objects and their implied relationship to the human body, as circling
both the wrists and the neck, functions to animate the works, breathing
life into the law-and-order policies that disproportionately target
and incarcerate men of color. 8
5. Originally conceived of and designed as
segregated housing complexes, Pruitt Igoe
opened in 1955 as racially integrated, owing
to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling
in Brown vs. Board of Education, which
deemed unconstitutional the legal practice of
“separate but equal” segregation. In practice,
however, racial integration within Pruitt-Igoe
remained minimal, and segregation became
a de facto reality: by the late 1960s, Pruitt
Igoe’s population was 98% Black. This can be
attributed to many factors, including whiteflight
to the suburbs and city’s long history
of racism and segregated housing practices.
See: Elizabeth Birmingham, “Refraining the
ruins: Pruitt-Igoe, Structural Racism, and
African American Rhetoric as a Space for
Cultural Critique,” Western Journal of Communication
63, no. 3 (1999): 291-309; Mary
C. Comerio, “Pruitt Igoe and Other Stories,”
Journal of Architectural Education 34, no. 4
(1981): 26-31.
6. The 1949 Housing Act that funded the
development of Pruitt-Igoe was used as a
tool of racial segregation and as justification
for the clearance of impoverished neighborhoods
in downtown St. Louis. Discriminatory
practices such as redlining further deepened
existing patterns of racial segregation.
The Myth of Pruitt-Igoe, directed by Chad
Freidrichs (2011; St. Louis, MO: First Run
Features, 2012), DVD.
7. For a more comprehensive evaluation on the
social, political, and economic forces that
contributed to the failure of Pruitt-Igoe,
see, for example: Katherine G. Bristol, “The
Pruitt-Igoe Myth,” Journal of Architectural
Education 44, no. 3 (1991): 163-71.
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