Greening the Red Line, 2015-2017

Artist in Resident at McColl Center for Art and Innovation, Charlotte, NC

Marion Wilson uses the simple color palette of red and green and images of the nitrogen producing cover crop crimson clover to mark with paint an area of significance to talk about the encroaching signs of development and its effect on people experiencing homelessness. 

“Greening the Red Line” began with art and urban foraging classes taught at Urban Ministries Artworks 945-a public drop-in art room. During the classes heated conversations ensued about the historical practice of red-lining which denied mortgage loans based on race; memories of neighborhoods that have changed in Charlotte, and the ways that artists both resist and participate in urban development. Participants wrote poems about what it feels like to be a person who “travels by foot” in Uptown Charlotte- included in the wall mural. This project was commissioned by an ArtPlace American grant and through an artist in residency fellowship at McColl Center for Art and Innovation in Fall 2016 and Winter 2018.

Wilson creates a wall on the front lawn of McColl Center directly across from a nearby gathering place (a wall on Pfifer Street in Uptown Charlotte) used informally as a place of rest, a place of business and a place of exchange, many individuals currently facing housing insecurity in Uptown Charlotte. This “wall” is one mile from the national headquarters of Bank of America and Wells Fargo.