About
Repossessions

Repossessions is a group exhibition of artwork based on documents from the enslavement era, originally inspired by one watercolor map and a singular desire for truth telling and repair. The title of the exhibition signals the history of human bondage as a foundation of the democracy of the United States. It acknowledges the legally sanctioned possession of one human being by another that produced the objects that are the catalyst for Repossessions. It also names the process of giving Black artists possession of facsimiles of the objects, allowing them to repossess them from archives of enslavement and alter their existence. Finally, Repossessions is an indictment of the bankrupt concept of human ownership and its violent multigenerational and international legacy that demand to be confronted and reckoned with.

Each artwork has been made by an artist who responded to a unique photograph, plantation map, page from a ledger, or other previously white-owned piece of ephemera representing the enslavement era. This ephemera, passed down through generations, has been offered by participating white individuals to The Reparations Project along with a $6,000 donation. Repossessions curator, Bridget R. Cooks, then invited each of the artists to participate and matched them with an item to contextualize. The Reparations Project paid each artist a commission to create the artwork for a public exhibition that will travel to  museums and galleries across the country. 

Using a variety of visual strategies, these commissioned artworks offer new ways to understand the significance of the original documents through the perspective of African American artists. Further, they will contribute to viewers’ understanding of the long aftermath of slavery and the demand for reparations today. At the end of the exhibition period, the artists themselves may sell their pieces to whomever they please and benefit financially a second time. None of the artworks will revert to the original ephemera donors unless the artist chooses to sell it to them at market value. We see this offering by white individuals, of ephemera and money toward Black art and public truth telling, as the opposite of art collecting for personal enjoyment or profit. We see it as a new way for white individuals to offer an act of repair and to engage in facing history.

The artists Chelle Barbour, Marcus Brown, Rodney Ewing, Curtis Patterson, and Kenyatta Hinkle were invited to participate in the initial exhibition.

Ewing created the first artwork to be featured in Repossessions. In 2021, he accepted an invitation by Sarah Eisner, Co-Founder of The Reparations Project, to work with a map that includes a rice plantation that her family owned in Georgia after the Civil War. 

Ewing printed an excerpt of poetry by Mahmoud Darwish on top of the map along with a diagram and caption identifying the plantation layout of Mount Airy in Richmond, VA. Ewing’s additions encourage viewers to linger in front of the document and consider what happened on the plantations, who lived there, and how they survived. From there, Eisner's vision of Repossesions grew, and she connected with Lotte Lieb Dula and Bridget R. Cooks to collaborate on creating and curating the exhibit. 

Click here for Eisner’s essay about the origins of the idea for Repossessions.

Questions? Contact Sarah Eisner & Bridget R. Cooks here.