The Swell Box Circuit re-contextualizes the church organ to create an infrastructure of large instruments in newly gentrified once-Black neighborhoods. Its aim is to reoccupy the voids left by departed Black residents, redeploying the logic of past networks of cultural infrastructure such as the Chitlin’ Circuit to combat the struggles emerging within the Black community today. One method for the removal of members of Black communities has been an attack on music via excessive noise complaints, followed by noise ordinances that inhibit Black expression and silence the voice of the community. The Swell Box Circuit responds by locating its instruments at the sites of bygone Black music venues, using those instruments’ large scale to make the displaced visible, and weaponizing the music produced by those instruments to reclaim Black territories once lost. In doing so, the architecture avoids static monumentality and becomes an active participant in the cultural production that resists ongoing gentrification.

Location: Greater U Street, Washington, D.C.
Team: Barrington Calvert and Michael Lee