2014 - 2023
Archival Pigment Prints
11 x 14”
Edition of 5, 1 AP
“Slave Dwellings (Oppressive Architecture)” is a project that examines how architecture functioned as an instrument of control within the plantation system of the American South. It investigates the inhumane living and working conditions imposed on people of African descent and analyzes how architectural forms supported commodity production, enforced social repression, and regulated human life and reproduction.
This project seeks to demonstrate how these structures continue to shape the contemporary landscape, affect present-day communities, and influence our understanding of history. My personal connection to this subject—through my marriage to an African American man whose family was forcibly brought to Virginia—motivates this inquiry. Through this and related projects, I examine my relationship and the intertwined histories of our families in the United States and Germany, addressing themes that include slavery, the Holocaust, and World War II.
All images of former slave dwellings were photographed at dusk in North Carolina and Virginia. Locating these structures has been difficult, as many slave dwellings have been demolished or allowed to deteriorate beyond repair. In contrast, the plantation owners’ “big houses” are often preserved—frequently repurposed as venues for weddings and other events—thereby perpetuating a one-sided account of the history of slavery.
I am deeply grateful to the Slave Dwelling Project and to several individuals committed to this work, particularly Jon Williams, for assisting me in finding these sites. Through the leadership of its founder, Joseph McGill, the Slave Dwelling Project seeks to advance a more honest and inclusive historical narrative. McGill’s mission is to spend a night in every surviving slave dwelling in the United States in order to help preserve these structures and educate the public about their significance.
In 2023, I was commissioned to photograph the remaining three dwellings in Brownsburg, VA, for the exhibition, "Intervowen - Unearthed Stories of Slavery," which is on view through the end of 2026.
