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Genealogy of Towers uses the carefully planned vistas of Washington DC to explore parameters of democratic free speech and restore layers of historical fact to the space between the Washington Monument and viewer/ visitor consciousness. Through conceptual reinscription of sight lines, this site installation inserts race and slavery into the national myth, into the carefully scripted vista of the Washington Monument. Located on the grounds of the Pan American Union, Genealogy of Towers consists of an image- a gigantic slave quarter from a Maryland plantation- screen printed on clear acrylic sheet, steel framed and mounted - 54" width x 7' height x 4"/infinity depth. To look through this work is to visually merge a 'slave bell tower' (19^th c. archival image), the insistent whiteness of the Washington Monument, and Constitution Avenue traffic (middle ground). Blood ties architecture to genealogy, as architecture/text obliterate the gap between myth and taboo fact, between viewer and national hero. This site/sight installation resonates off the symbolic context and observed landscape, which include the White House and the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Headquarters. Strategically located opposite the Mall, this montage viewing device suggests free speech only exists if it is publicly exercised, that free speech is a test of public space, that viewing can be an act of free speech.