TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPES: Memory and Slavery across the Americas
Students in Professor Anna Arabindan-Kesson’s fall 2019 course, “Seeing to Remember: Representing Slavery Across the Black Atlantic,” curated this exhibition, which includes photographs recently acquired by the Museum to expand its engagement with the visual history of slavery in the United States.
We think of the artworks assembled here as cultural and geographical landscapes. They span multiple time periods, from the eighteenth century to the present day, and depict both the physical and the metaphorical space that Black people occupy in the United States and the Caribbean. They represent both the lived realities of enslavement and the aftermath of plantation life. While some of these scenes may be more familiar representations of slavery than others, all of these objects are imbued with emotional, corporeal, and generational memories of slavery.
As you move through the exhibition, we hope you will also consider how the history of slavery is embedded within Princeton University’s history. The Princeton and Slavery project and the Campus Iconography Committee have drawn new attention to the histories of slavery and the lives of African Americans at Princeton, through digital walking tours and new commemorative spaces. Although this exhibition is not a memorial in the same way, these works of art also compel us—in sometimes difficult ways—to confront the historical horrors of slavery and, as the photograph by Danny Lyon reminds us, its continuing legacies today.
Amy Amatya, Natalie Bahrami, Runako Campbell, Katie Kuhlman, Chelsea Peart, Arianne Rowe
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A Negro hung alive by the Ribs to a Gallows, plate 2 from the book Narrative of a Five Year's Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guina ... from the year 1772 to 1777 by Captain J.G. StedmanA Negro hung alive by the Ribs to a Gallows, plate 2 from the book Narrative of a Five Year's Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guina ... from the year 1772 to 1777 by Captain J.G. Stedman, printed December 1, 1792
William Blake, British, 1757–1827 | Published by Joseph Johnson, British, 1738–1809 -
A Surinam Planter in his Morning Dress, plate 10 from the book Narrative of a Five Year's Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guina ... from the year 1772 to 1777 by Captain J.G. StedmanA Surinam Planter in his Morning Dress, plate 10 from the book Narrative of a Five Year's Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guina ... from the year 1772 to 1777 by Captain J.G. Stedman, printed December 2, 1793
William Blake, British, 1757–1827 | Published by Joseph Johnson, British, 1738–1809 -
Negro CabinNegro Cabin, ca. 1865
James A. Palmer, American, active 1860s -
Family on porch, mother breastfeedingFamily on porch, mother breastfeeding, 1860s–1890s
Unknown American photographer -
Stereograph of Composition of 224. Picking CottonStereograph of Composition of 224. Picking Cotton,
Published by J. N. Wilson & Co., American, active 1865–1896 -
RelicsRelics, 1931–46
Hale Aspacio Woodruff, American, 1900–1980 | Printed at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York -
By Parties UnknownBy Parties Unknown, 1931–46, printed 1996
Hale Aspacio Woodruff, American, 1900–1980 | Printed at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York -
In Harriet Tubman I Helped Hundreds to FreedomIn Harriet Tubman I Helped Hundreds to Freedom, 1946, printed 1989
Elizabeth Catlett, American, 1915–2012 | Printed at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York -
Black VenusBlack Venus, 1957
Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs, American, 1917–2010 -
Cotton pickers, Ferguson Unit, TexasCotton pickers, Ferguson Unit, Texas, 1967–69, printed 1979
Danny Lyon, American, born 1942 -
Moon and Two SunsMoon and Two Suns, 1971
Romare Bearden, American, 1911–1988 -
Black CartBlack Cart, 2008
Martin Puryear, American, born 1941 | Published and printed by Paulson Fontaine Press
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