Flee Plantation
Flee Plantation
Printed in 2021, linocut print with oil based ink on Stonehenge paper, 57”x 24”. Edition of 13.
Flee Plantation is part of my series of work re{volt}ing, re-imagining John Stedman’s Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Suriname (1796) from the perspective of the enslaved, rather than that of John Stedman, a British-Dutch soldier, observing the experiences of the enslaved. I created relief prints redressing Stedman’s text and printed engravings to represent a sense of agency of the maroons’ and those enslaved. Engaging in a very physical process of carving, or digging the image out of wood and linoleum, which is akin to the very raw process of digging through these histories, I attempt to recover from the trauma of slavery and colonialism. Upon Stedman’s arrival in Suriname his host, a plantation owner, gets word that 25 enslaved people on a plantation nearby set it ablaze and journey onward to meet the Maroons. This is my visualization of those 25 people.