The Brooklyn Rail

I can’t remember the first time I saw the now infamous print of the Brookes slave ship (c. 1788) which illustrates how enslaved Africans were packed to maximize profit into every conceivable space within the cargo hold. My mind contains an indelible image of its form, proportions, and repeating patterns that I almost instantly recall whenever I encounter it. Its iconography is stark, a black-and-white print showing the ship’s architecture and the bodies held within. One of the most recognized historical documents of the transatlantic slave trade, its history and significance have been well established. Beyond its archival notoriety, the illustration exists within contemporary culture as artwork, logo, and signifier. However, as much as we know about the image, we know nothing beyond the fact that these individuals were forcibly transported from Africa. Even the number of bodies contained within the illustration, 454, is often overlooked. Rendered as merely objects, the figures in the Brookes illustrations are there, filling in empty space as cargo, currency.

As a pictorial strategy in the visual arts, simplifying the human form to a unit as an expression of social and political power is well-established. Think of examples from medieval icon painting, ancient Egyptian tomb reliefs, and Qin Shi Huang’s terracotta army in China. When a more powerful individual in the group happens to be depicted, they are often rendered larger than the other figures, given more elaborate clothing, and/or positioned as the focus of the composition. This is done to denote their importance. But the overall flattening of identity seeks to control and align the opinion of the viewer with the idea that those depicted, their repetition and “sameness,” are in servitude.

If we look at a range of artworks and artifacts of enslaved Africans from the transatlantic trade and chattel slavery in the Americas, we discover a variety of imagery, from highly personal portraiture, to generalized illustrations of “runaways” and those being sold at auctions. The most similar to the Brookes illustration for me, however, are the written records of enslavement kept by plantation owners, insurance companies, and others. These documents often list gender, age, skills, a given name, and usually nothing else. The similarities between the Brookes illustration and these records are in the lack of information they provide. Their oversimplification almost reads as binary code. When considering the political and social history of Black bodies within Western culture, the consequences of this reductivism become clear—objectification as a form of subjugation. And while the Brookes illustration was intended as a form of advocacy for the abolition of the slave trade, it represents a double-edged sword by exposing the suffering of the many while erasing the identity of each and every body held captive onboard the ship. This is a consequence we continue to contend with today.

As an artist of African descent, the Brookes illustration and visual archives like it have served as an impetus for me to create my series, the “cardboard slave kit.” This body of work reimagines the identities of enslaved individuals portrayed within the context of iconic historical imagery (such as the Josiah Wedgewood 1787 kneeling slave medallion designed for the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Hiram Powers’s 1866 Greek Slave, and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s 1873 Why Born Enslaved!) in a more intimate way by inviting the viewer into the artwork’s formation. The “cardboard slave kit” project asks us to consider the creation, proliferation, and abolishment of slavery as a series of systems built on conflicting notions of servitude, cooperation, ownership, enterprise, and propaganda.

Using digital fabrication and handmade methods, enslaved Black bodies are reconstructed in the slave kit as larger-than-life cardboard sculptures, do-it-yourself flat-pack kits, laser cut drawings, and participatory workshops. As such, our engagement with the original works is transformed to one that is more empathetic through an extended hands-on creative process, which raises complex issues around technology, representation, and slavery today. This and other durational forms of redress, I believe, are critical to understanding the suffering and humanity of others while gaining a more intimate knowledge of how the individual is a distinct and autonomous part of each and every society.