Description

Vessels of Slavery: Trade Winds is the second event in an ongoing collaboration between five women of color, the Cape Ann Museum, and the Manship Artists Retreat & Studios. These artists have diverse artistic practices and expertise including public art engagement, fiber artists that create narrative quilts and aesthetic objects, research, teaching and educational curriculum design, and as well as their individual artistic practices. Sika Foyer, IlaSahai Prouty, and the members Susi Ryan, Christle Rawlins-Jackson, and Lesyslie Rackard of Sisters in Stitches Joined by the Cloth (SISJTBC) were brought together by the work of Doris Prouty, an African American quilter who made Gloucester her home for nearly 50 years, when it was exhibited at the Cape Ann Museum Green in 2022.  

From November 13- 20, 2023, the artists will come together in their second week-long residency at the Cape Ann Museum and the Manship Artists Retreat & Studios, working with the theme of reclamation to bring collective light to the stories of enslaved people in Gloucester. Slavery is a subject of sorrow, humiliation, and inhumanity for everyone. How to build on such a legacy? How do we come to terms with it, how do we heal from it? 

In the event on Sunday, November 19th, the artists will offer an opportunity to contemplate the existence and impact of slavery on Cape Ann, and to have conversations with one another. Through this ongoing collaboration, Vessels of Slavery: Trade Winds will open up conversation around the history of slavery in Gloucester for all members of the Cape Ann community in a safe?and nurturing environment.

This residency is funded in part by a Partnership Grant from Essex Heritage.

Vessels of Slavery is funded in part by the MassHumanities Expanding Massachusetts Stories Grant.