Azurest

“Azurest” is project on race, gender, queer desire, and homemaking in Jim Crow era Virginia. It is part documentary and part speculation. The primary subject is Azurest South, a 1938 International Style home designed by the underrecognized African American architect Amaza Lee Meredith, where she lived with her partner Dr. Edna Colson. The series combines photographs of the home and ephemera from Meredith’s archive. The color blue is prominent in the building and echoed in cyanotypes made from Meredith’s snapshots showing her travels and leisure activities. This constellation of images situates Merediths’ life and home within broader context of modern architecture and housing in the Southern United States during the early 20th Century. My work explores LGBTQ+ histories in rural areas and the south; research which led me to Azurest South and Amaza Lee Meredith. Her story is an important counter-narrative in Virginian history. Meredith’s home is a conscious break from the Colonial conventions of Virginian architecture. It reflects her cosmopolitanism, frequent travels, and education in New York. Her work also provides a stark contrast to the almost exclusively white, male representation of International Style modern architecture. This project resists these essentializing narratives through a juxtaposition of source materials, processes, and scale.