Reparations Bank imagines America paying for past sins

My first encounter with Reparations Bank of America happened in July 2023 during Honest Work , a project organized by Amani Davis and Parus Nischal in Pittsburgh. Rather than entering a gallery, visitors were invited into an office space. My participation in the performance unfolded through a series of administrative procedures. I sat across from a representative, answered a series of questions, and left with a reparations card that reads “a Black card that matters” and has remained tucked in my wallet ever since. The exchange felt remarkably mundane, borrowing the ordinary rhythms of paperwork, questions, and institutional procedure. Created by the artist Free Soul , Reparations Bank simulates a functioning financial institution. Its website introduces visitors to executive leadership, memberships, reparations bonds, field offices, and the “Limitless Black Card,” all while maintaining the language and visual precision of corporate banking. Free Soul will activate a new Reparations Bank Field Office in Pittsburgh on Fri., Aug. 7 at 5120 Penn Ave., in the Garfield arts district. From there, “Office Hours” occur on various days through Fri, Aug. 14, with events including an Artist Talk, screening, and forum, as well as two separate “By Appointment” dates. By offering member enrollment, teller processing, vault viewings, and bond consultations, the project continues to blur the line between institutional performance and administrative reality. It does not ask participants to imagine a different world so much as to briefly inhabit one in which repair is treated, not as an abstract political aspiration, but as the ordinary work of an institution carrying out its responsibilities. Tara Fay Coleman’s Reparations Bank of America card Credit: Tara Fay Coleman That institutional voice extends beyond the website. Even in responding to questions from Pittsburgh City Paper , the Bank rema