Eroding Witness is a series of works that chronicle from the 1930s to the early 1970s, the elimination of political leadership within Black Communities across the nation. I have been particularly interested in events that occurred within my hometown of Houston, which are much less well known than events in Chicago or New York.

"The works in Eroding Witness are made from various documents, from FBI memorandums to newspaper headlines to concert posters. These materials are digitally manipulated, and then laser cut into papyrus. The papyrus was chosen because of its connection to Ancient Egypt and its ability to work as a symbol of the archive. The works are about the erosion of memory, and of a certain type of political consciousness in the United States, particularly among the black population. I try to convey loss through the manner in which the imagery and sculptural material are handled. Both are going through different forms of breakdown. The papyrus is being cut by a laser, which means it is being burned, and so is going through a physical degradation, while the imagery/text are experiencing massive degrees of artifacting, and is suffering a breakdown in legibility and transmission."

-Jamal Cyrus