Last month, 2024 Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI) Artist/Scholar in Residence and visual artist Maya Freelon unveiled her exhibition, Whippersnappers: Recapturing, Reviewing, and Reimagining the Lives of Enslaved Children in the United States, to the public at Historic Stagville. Located in Durham, North Carolina, Stagville was once one of the largest plantations in North Carolina. The white family who owned the plantation, the Bennehan-Cameron family, enslaved over 900 people at the plantation’s peak in 1864.
The exhibition, which has been highlighted on national and local press outlets such as Garden & Gun, Forbes, INDY Week, and others, is on view until January 25, 2025.
The state-run historic site consists of several original buildings including a timber-framed barn (c. 1860), four original slave dwellings (c. 1851), and the Bennehan house (c. 1799). Freelon’s works, which use her signature tissue-paper sculptures, can be found in the barn and in seven rooms throughout the Bennehan house. The pieces draw upon Library of Congress materials to honor and re-imagine the lives of enslaved children. One sculpture contains the printed names of 200 children who were enslaved on the plantation.
For her project, Freelon sought to identify 19th century images of Black children that represented “innocence, beauty, light, and love amidst a terrible situation” in an effort to memorialize their experiences. However, it is rare to find images of Black children experiencing joy during this time period. Instead, she would more often encounter heart-rending images of Black children in distressing situations. As a result, Freelon had to expand the criteria for photos she sought in order to uncover photos like this one of a young Black girl smiling while standing in a field of flowers and other candid moments. Staff from the Library’s Prints and Photographs Reading Room were instrumental in helping Freelon find the photos she needed.
Freelon used images from the Library’s Farm Security Administration, Liljenquist, and Gladstone collections, as well as her partner Jess Vanhook’s family archives to aid in the creation of her work. After identifying the images she wanted to use, she scanned them to high-resolution, allowing her to expand the photos to massive sizes. By using creative processes such as her patented Tissue Ink Monoprint, she was able to transform dozens of images, like this one of a young Black girl posing next to a chair, into colorful, intricate works of art.
Source Image: [Unidentified young African American girl in dress with hat on chair] (Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs / Library of Congress)
The exhibition opening’s theme was “play,” evoking and celebrating the innocence of children held in bondage. Nearly 60 people attended the event, including the descendants of people who were enslaved on Stagville Plantation. There were a range of activities for attendees to participate in, from musical engagements to childhood games such as “Little Sally Walker” and “Down by the River.” Nnenna Freelon, Freelon’s mother and an award-winning jazz singer, sang nursery rhymes such as “Hush My Child” and invited attendees to accompany her with provided instruments.
Dr. Allie Martin, Freelon’s fellow 2024 CCDI Artist/Scholar in Residence, presented a motion activated soundscape in the Stagville barn. By walking around the barn, attendees could play and hear different noises, ranging from Nnenna Freelon’s vocals and Martin’s own voice, to wind sounds from the cemetery where Martin’s grandmother is buried. This transformed the barn into a unique instrument that could be played by multiple people at once.
Whippersnappers is a project that centers an often-overlooked population in the study of slavery, Black children, as they navigated inconceivable atrocities during enslavement in the United States. Freelon’s tissue paper creations acknowledge their experiences, memorialize their perspectives, and center their innocence and joy through delicate multidimensional works of art. She aimed to craft and place these pieces with care, saying in Garden & Gun: “I wanted to uplift Black children and bring honor, respect and beauty. We all experience childhood, and we can all agree it’s sacred.”
Projects like Freelon’s highlight the experiences of Black communities and showcase Library materials, supporting CCDI’s goals and extending the Library’s reach to new audiences.
Whippersnappers is on display at Historic Stagville in Durham, North Carolina until January 25, 2025.
CCDI is part of the Library’s Of the People: Widening the Path program with support from the Mellon Foundation. This program provides fellowships and grants to individuals and institutions for projects that innovate, imagine, and remix Library materials to highlight the stories and perspectives of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color from any of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and its territories and commonwealths (Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands). Learn more about CCDI.