In Memory of the Unforgettable Free

The essentiality of place and materialism in religious thinking is clear in this tribute to local resident Anton D. Nikci in a parking lot off of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.  Home to many immigrants, especially those of Albanian descent, the Bronx is an intersection of different cultures and backgrounds and a microcosm of the pluralistic society that America is.

The materiality of this mural is significant mainly because it is in painting and where exactly it is painted--a conglomeration of crafting and carving out different cultures into one. This sort of crafting of identity is not always as possible in other mediums, but painting is fluid and free enough for this construction of identity.  This mural immortalizes and embodies different aspects of Anton Nikci's identity that he holds in himself: Albanian, American, Christian, and resident of Arthur Avenue.  It combines both English and Albanian languages, and sets Nikci's portrait against the Albanian flag and at the side of Jesus, and all of this sits near where he lived, on Arthur Avenue.

This recognition of the pluralism within Nikci in commemorating his life and his unique identity bears striking resemblance to Leila Ahmed's reconciliation of the multiple facets of her own identity in A Border Passage.  Although at first uneasy with the multiple dimensions that Islam, womanhood, Egyptian, Arab, and American posed to her identity, she realizes that "we are always plural.  Not either this or that, but this and that.  And we always embody in our multiple shifting consciousnesses a convergence of traditions, cultures, histories coming together in this time and this place and moving like rivers through us" (Ahmed, 25).  Similarly, Nikci held the multiple consciousnesses of Albania, America, and Christianity in his identity, and in a broader sense, the specific location on Arthur Avenue held each of these traditions, too.  No other place could these traditions have been crafted than on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, where these traditions and this person fell so in unison that the artist intentionally chose this specific spot to immortalize Nikci.

Ahmed also speaks to this essentiality of place in her memoir in regards to her childhood home in Ain Shams as “quintessentially a place of borders and that even geographically it was so places as not quite to belong to any one world” but instead “to belong, at once, to all of them” (Ahmed, 16).  For both Nikci and the artist, the location of this mural reinforces all that Nikci was.  Arthur Avenue, an intersection of Albanian, American and Christian traditions was also Nikci's intersection and his pluralism within his identity, and this could only be crafted in a medium that was painted and fluidly and freely created, as he, too, crafted fluidly and freely crafted his own identity.

This specific location and the specific medium with which the tribute was created is significant, also, to the viewer.  As fellow residents of Arthur Avenue with similar identities to Nikci happen upon this memorial, they are reminded of their identity, too.  Similar to one of the pillars of thought of Ignatian spirituality, "finding God in all things", it is not enough to simply think of something meaningful to truly experience it.  It is essential to find it and see it in everyday experiences.  The intention of the artist was not only to lift up the life and the pluralism of Anton D. Nikci, but to remind the viewers, too, of their identities and their places and place in the world each time they pass by.

References:

Ahmed, L. (2012). A Border Passage. New York: Penguin Group, Inc.

Perlow, J. (2010, March 28). Arthur Avenue: Park When You See Jesus. Retrieved from Off the Broiler: https://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/arthur-avenue-park-when-you-see-jesus/