Cotton Flower

The Cotton Flower series uses portraiture to center Black women in historical discourse surrounding enslaved resistance. In slave societies, power was constructed through the use of race and gender. Enslaved women were exploited not only for their labor but also for their capacity to sustain the workforce through childbirth. The persistent threat of sexualized violence and forced familial separation pushed some women to subvert reproduction by engaging in bold acts of resistance. On cotton plantations, in particular, some enslaved women chose to ingest cotton roots to prevent pregnancy and induce abortions. By asserting their bodily autonomy, these Black women insurgents directly challenged the slave economy. In an effort to reconcile with and transform the profound pain of the history of enslavement into power, the Cotton Flower series re-envisions cotton plants as symbols of gendered resistance – instruments powerfully wielded by enslaved Black women to circumvent systems of oppression and fight for selfhood.