Artist Statement:

When I told a family member that I’d found records showing our ancestors had enslaved people, they quickly said “no”—and then, after a pause, insisted we would surely know if they had. That knee-jerk response launched this entire collection.

These pieces trace my journey sprawling three states—North Carolina, South Carolina, and Kentucky—from that moment of family denial through old estate documents and Civil War letters, and eventually into dream conversations with the ancestors. Using traditional techniques, church banner reimagined from my Southern Baptist childhood, and worn textiles I’ve found and mended, I’m exploring how White families maintain silence while continuing to benefit from enslaved-generated wealth.

The work moves from confronting hard evidence to trying to communicate with ancestors—through imagined conversations, dream work, and AI that animates old family photos. I’ve sewn dozens of dolls representing ancestors and piled them awkwardly into a too-small bed with myself. I’ve embroidered questions to my great-grandfather and slept with them under my pillow, waiting for answers that came so intensely I had to retire the piece as an oracle after just three nights.

This collection emerges from a belief that our ancestors might still have work to do—and that we might be the ones meant to help them do it. Like other artists examining inherited trauma and unaddressed histories, these works suggest that the past isn’t finished with us yet. Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s Unburied Sounds shows us that American bombs still lie undercoated in the soils of Vietnam even today; similarly, the legacies of slavery continue to shape our domestic landscape in ways some of us are only beginning to understand.

Rather than ending with revelation, the work culminates in active repair: both the literal mending of a found quilt and the ongoing spiritual work of ancestral accountability. This joins broader conversations about reparations by asking not just “what did our families do?” but “what do the ancestors need from us now?”

100% of proceeds from sales support scholarships through the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, providing students with opportunities at historically Black colleges and universities across the country—making the repair work concrete and immediate.