A playground with climbing bars and a jungle gym is split in two by an image of children of different races playing. On one side, the image is black-and-white; the other side is in bright colors. The playground matches the colors on each side.

Derrick Adams

America’s Playground: DC (2023)

A monumental playground that reflects the story of desegregated playgrounds in the nation’s capital

Across his work, Derrick Adams explores public spaces through the lenses of Black joy, humor, and possibility. In America’s Playground: DC, the artist offers a public artwork in the form of a fully operational playground that reflects on legacies of leisure, racial division, and transformation in Washington, DC and beyond. The playground is bifurcated by a billboard-sized image drawn from the DC Public Library’s archives. Featuring the previously all-white Edgewood Park, the photo was taken days after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling Bolling v. Sharpe declared the segregation of DC’s schools—and by extension its playgrounds— unconstitutional. According to Adams, play is paramount in this installation, but his work “transforms the playground into a site of contemplation, and remembrance.” Adams positions this historic milestone of integration in our nation’s capital as monumental, celebratory, and relevant today.

Location: Constitution Gardens–East (map) / Open through Sept. 13

Materials: Powder-coated steel, polymer printed panel, and thermoplastic Vulcanizate (surfacing)

Photos courtesy of Steve Weinik Photography

Photos courtesy of AJ Mitchell Photography

A Black man gazes into the camera, composed and relaxed. He wears a black shirt with a slightly lighter black blazer, a black cap, and rounded black glasses. His beard is flecked with silver. A cityscape is distantly visible.

Derrick Adams

Born 1970 in Baltimore, Maryland
Based in Brooklyn, New York
he/him/his

Derrick Adams is an artist whose work spans painting, collage, sculpture, performance, video, sound, and public activation. He explores how identity and personal narrative intersect with American iconography, art history, urban culture, and Black experiences. Adams’s work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and other museums, and has been shown in public spaces such as Rockefeller Center and Chicago’s Navy Pier.

Credits

Studio team: Alyssa Alexander and Cobi Krieger

Project manager: Gina Ciralli

Fabricator: Playground Specialists Inc.

Photography: The People’s Archive at DC Public Library

Special thank-yous: Edgewood Recreation Center, DC Public Library, Gagosian, and Scheherazade Tillet

Public Program

Play Day / Public Program of Derrick Adams’ America's Playground: DC

Took place Saturday, August 19, 2023
12:00 PM-4:00 PM
Constitution Gardens Plaza

A joyful day of play organized by artist Derrick Adams and A Long Walk Home’s Scheherazade Tillet, inspired by Tillet’s Black Girl Play photography series and community collaboration. This all-ages event featured music, games, and double dutch, a great opportunity to introduce children to the Beyond Granite: Pulling Together exhibition.