The Unauthorized Histography of California Volume 1
2018
Appropriation art collage piece work-in-progress

The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol. 2: Fieldnotes, 2022
2018
Appropriation art collage piece work-in-progress

The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol 2: Fieldnotes is an 8 -minute collaborative video collage. It is part of a two-volume series and weaves together vignettes composed of archival imagery from the Sacramento Historical Society of the Negro Bar and Sacramento/greater California Community, sourced video footage, and video/photo imagery produced by the artist team at the Negro Bar State Park, Sacramento area, and artist home studio. Imagery is layered in a framework to create dense multilayered remixing of video/ still imagery.

Queen Califia, a fictional character in which California received her namesake, played by Wimbley, will be used as a central figure throughout the length of the video, navigating through a multilayered video collage of Californian history and landscape, (histography) centered on the location and history of the Negro Bar State Park, a historic site named for African American gold miners during the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Clip, The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol 2: Fieldnotes,2022

Fieldnotes

Collaborative Art Projects by Jessica Wimbley and Chris Christion

Fieldnotes explores the culturally diverse and layered history of California principally during the westward expanse driven by the 1849 California Gold Rush and its relationship to the various sites both temporal and geographical in California history. Histography, a type of interactive timeline which allows users to interface with views between decades to millions of years, is used as framework to create dense multilayered imagery. Additionally, archive building, collage, histography, performance, and video are used to create artworks that investigate California’s natural, social, and political histories.

Fieldnotes namesake, is a homage to the anthropological research and film production of Zora Neale Hurston, in her groundbreaking documentary Fieldworks, 1928, while also demarking archive building, collage, video and performance as forms of fieldnotes.

Film Still, Fieldworks, 1928 Zora Neale Hurston

The Land of Milk & Honey is a traveling multidisciplinary arts and culture program that focuses on concepts around agriculture in the regions of California and Mexico and is presented by the MexiCali Biennial.

The exhibition explores artists’ views around multi-layered topics associated with agriculture including environmental impacts, cultural culinary traditions, identity and migration, regional histographies, and familial and mythical connections to food.

Still, The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol. 2: Fieldnotes, 2022

Unauthorized Histography of California Vol.II Fieldnotes, 2022 image 1

Selected Themes and Sources

California Seal

The narrative within the composition of the California Seal is used as conceptual and aesthetic framework .

Calafia

Calafia, or Califia, is the fictional queen of the island of California, first introduced by sixteenth-century poet Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo in his epic novel of chivalry, Las sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián), written around 1510. When colonization was in its infancy, he established a portrait of the powerful ruler of an independent, matriarchal, and militarized kingdom.

Flying Geese Pattern

This pattern originates in Indigenous culture and is repeatedly seen in the basket weavings of the Maudi tribe who originally lived in a territory extending eastward from the Sacramento River to the crest of the Sierra Nevada. Used in quilting codes of enslaved African Americans as directions North to freedom, following migration pattern of geese.

Negro Bar

Negro Bar State Park, a historic site named for African American gold miners during the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Blacks In the Gold Rush California

Rudolph Lapp pieces together in a coherent and fascinating narrative this missing chapter of American history.

Freedom's Frontier

In Freedom's Frontier, Stacey L. Smith examines the battle over slavery as it unfolded on the multiracial Pacific Coast. Despite its antislavery constitution, California was home to a dizzying array of bound and semibound labor systems: African American slavery, American Indian indenture, Latino and Chinese contract labor, and a brutal sex traffic in bound Indigenous and Chinese women.

Selected Themes and Sources

California Seal

The narrative within the composition of the California Seal is used as conceptual and aesthetic framework .

Calafia

Calafia, or Califia, is the fictional queen of the island of California, first introduced by sixteenth-century poet Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo in his epic novel of chivalry, Las sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián), written around 1510. When colonization was in its infancy, he established a portrait of the powerful ruler of an independent, matriarchal, and militarized kingdom.

Flying Geese Pattern

This pattern originates in Indigenous culture and is repeatedly seen in the basket weavings of the Maudi tribe who originally lived in a territory extending eastward from the Sacramento River to the crest of the Sierra Nevada. Used in quilting codes of enslaved African Americans as directions North to freedom, following migration pattern of geese.

Negro Bar

Negro Bar State Park, a historic site named for African American gold miners during the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Blacks In the Gold Rush California

Rudolph Lapp pieces together in a coherent and fascinating narrative this missing chapter of American history.

Freedom's Frontier

In Freedom's Frontier, Stacey L. Smith examines the battle over slavery as it unfolded on the multiracial Pacific Coast. Despite its antislavery constitution, California was home to a dizzying array of bound and semibound labor systems: African American slavery, American Indian indenture, Latino and Chinese contract labor, and a brutal sex traffic in bound Indigenous and Chinese women.

California Natural Resource Agency, Sacramento, CA

Public Art CA Digital Art Collection

Fieldnotes: Califia, 2021

Chris Christion & Jessica Wimbley

Video Collage

2:34 minutes

In partnership with the State of California and Dyson and Womack, Fieldnotes: Califia is featured on 35ft digital screen in the lobby of California Natural Resource Agency in Sacramento, CA.

More Info

Clip, Fieldnotes: Califia, 2021

The Unauthorized Histography of California Volume 1 2018 Appropriation art collage piece work-in-progress

The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol. 2: Fieldnotes, 2022 2018 Appropriation art collage piece work-in-progress

Fieldnotes

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Selected Themes and Sources

Selected Themes and Sources

California Natural Resource Agency, Sacramento, CA

The Unauthorized Histography of California Volume 1
2018
Appropriation art collage piece work-in-progress

The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol. 2: Fieldnotes, 2022
2018
Appropriation art collage piece work-in-progress