Spatial Trauma and the American Slave Cabin Photographic Exhibition

Spatial Trauma and the American Slave Cabin

Intersection of Memory, History and the Architecture of Enslavement  

Photographic Exhibition by Dr. Curtis Graves

The Auburn Avenue Research Library, in collaboration with Hammonds House Museum will host Spatial Trauma and the American Slave Cabin: Intersection of Memory, History and the Architecture of Enslavement photographic exhibition, by Dr. Curtis Graves. As a direct descendent of Africans enslaved on New Orleans’ Evergreen and Whitney Plantations, Dr. Graves artistically explores these spaces as sites ancestral subjugation with a particular focus on the structures that housed enslaved Africans. Via a well-crafted minimalist photographic aesthetic, this exhibition forces the viewer to experience these plantations from the lived visual perspectives of the enslaved. By examining the intentional spatial trauma created by plantation architecture, Dr. Graves also encourages the viewer to consider the ongoing contemporary marginalization of the memory and history found at historic sites of Black suffering in the United States.