Fall 2023 Center Grant Recipient
Elgin Cleckley (Architecture)
Brookes (Revisited) is the first design exhibition to accurately visualize the iconic 1788 drawing “Stowage of the British Slave Ship Brookes under the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788,” created by abolitionists and politicians using architectural techniques. The exhibition uses an innovative empathic design to humanize 5,122 captured ancestors in voyages of Brookes' Middle Passage Atlantic crossings. The work melds architecture, art, history, and contemporary thought through an innovative, empathic design, sparking new conversations about the confinement of ancestors in the ship's hold. Using research from Slave Trade databases, the work visualizes Brookes' 11 voyages, providing a complete understanding of the ship's untold narrative through a modern Black lens.