From the most recent Library of Congress blog post for the Library intiative Of the People: Widening the Path, we learn about the work of visual artist Maya Freelon, and her visit to the Library of Congress to explore the collections for her current project, Whippersnappers: Recapturing, Reviewing, and Reimagining the Lives of Enslaved Children in the United States. The post notes that “[Freelon] uses materials from the Library’s digital collections and mixed-media to create new artwork that honors and celebrates the innocence, beauty, and resilience of Black children.”
After visits to the Prints & Photographs Reading Room, this photo of a young girl from the Frances Benjamin Johnston collection became the basis of one of Freelon’s works. Read the post, see the artwork she created, and enjoy learning more about her research journey and artistic explorations: Maya Freelon Seeks Images of Black Childhood at the Library.
