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In a black and white photo, a crowd of white people stand near a tree.
A man escorts a woman from the scene, his left arm through the crook of her right. Meanwhile, dozens of people look in every direction.
The reason for their bustle has been edited out.
This is “The Wonder Gaze,” an image by Ken Gonzales-Day from a series entitled Erased Lynchings. It’s a historic photo from 1930s California, minus the victim.
This is the featured image on the MacKenzie Art Gallery’s website for an in-the-works exhibition, Conceptions of White.
“The people in this particular image are not all actively tying a noose, but their mere presence and inaction creates an atmosphere within which such violence is normalized and perpetuated,” the MAG website states.
This is the kind of piece gallery-goers may find at the MAG in two years, when Conceptions of White is installed.
Gonzales-Day is “an artist that we’ve definitely been having conversations with,” said Lillian O’Brien Davis, a curatorial assistant at the MAG who is involved with this project.
