Artistic Representation

Image : Freedom Over Me by Ashley Bryan

Freedom over me Book pages

Freedom Over Me

By Ashley Bryan

This book is inspired by the 1828 inventory of a Virginia plantation owner that lists the worth of his enslaved women, men and children. Author and artist Ashley Bryan created collages around that document, bills of sale, newspaper ads for auctions, and runaway ads. Through fierce paintings and expansive poetry he imagines and interprets each person’s life on the plantation, as well as the life their owner knew nothing about—their dreams and pride in knowing that they were worth far more than any owner knew.

adapted from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28954117-freedom-over-me 2016

Poem resources :

Sample Poem

Wonder format template

What do you Wonder

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/18/bellringer

The Bellringer by Rita Dove

Rita Dove, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, teaches at the University of Virginia and serves as the poetry editor of the Times Magazine.

At Princeton, Titus Kaphar Reckons with the University's History of Slavery

Click to open Titus Kaphar TED Talk

Can art amend history?Artist Titus Kaphar makes paintings and sculptures that wrestle with the struggles of the past while speaking to the diversity and advances of the present. In an unforgettable live workshop, Kaphar takes a brush full of white paint to a replica of a 17th-century Frans Hals painting, obscuring parts of the composition and bringing its hidden story into view. There's a narrative coded in art like this, Kaphar says. What happens when we shift our focus and confront unspoken truths?

Annette Gordon-Reed and Titus Kaphar — Are We Actually Citizens Here?Realigning the American story with the deeper, more complicated truth. Shining a light on the past to live more abundantly now.