Amani Willett: Hiding in Place
Friday, October 4 - Sunday, November 24, 2024
Artist talk: Sunday, November 17, 2pm
Installation view
Abakus Projects is pleased to present Hiding in Place, our second solo exhibition by gallery artist, Amani Willett. Hiding in Place consists of photographs made along various locations along the historic Underground Railroad, the network of routes and safe houses used by enslaved African and African-American people, and the abolitionists who aided them on their way to freedom to the northern free states of the United States.
Augmenting these large scale works are historical ephemera in the form of 19th century slave catcher ads, as well as a number of recently created AI-generated images made from the first-person accounts of an enslaved man who made his escape in South Carolina in 1833. Through these new works, Willett further explores the theme of factual accuracy and lore surrounding the Underground Railroad and sheds light onto the hidden biases inherent in artificial intelligence, a technology that is often touted as being neutral, despite the fact that it is encoded with all the perspectives and preconceived cultural notions of its creators.
AMANI WILLETT, Hiding Place, Cambridge, MA., 2011
40 x 50 inches | 101.6 x 127 cm.
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
It is rumored that a fugitive slave hid for the night in this park, and eluded slave-catchers, while making the trip from Lewis Hayden’s house in Boston to Joshua Bowen Smith’s house in Cambridge.
“The images in ‘Hiding in Place’ could be considered a family history of sorts. My mother is black and my father white and were both raised as Quakers - a religious organization whose members were deeply invested in the abolitionist movement. It’s therefore no surprise that the history of the Underground Railroad is of great interest to me.
While the project began as a personal exploration, it evolved into an investigation into the way history, memory and mythology have been etched into Underground Railroad sites. These places have become disconnected from their past yet still carry the legacy of shameful societal atrocities and stories of remarkable personal courage.
Time has the ability to bend the truth. As the years have passed, the mythology of the Underground Railroad has grown; some original accounts have become exaggerated, overshadowed by our fascination with mystery and easily digestible history. This bothered me at first, but I’ve come to believe that the way we, as a society, have chosen to remember or reconstruct our past is just as informative and important as the truth.”
-Amani Willett
Installation view
AMANI WILLETT, Night Escape, 2024
11 x 14 inches | 25.56 x 27.94 cm.
Archival pigment print of AI-generated image
Edition of 5
AMANI WILLETT, December 8th 1855,Gilpin’s Point, Tuckahoe Forest, Caroline County, MD., 2011
40 x 50 inches | 101.6 x 127 cm.
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
On December 8, 1855, Joseph Cornish started out on foot for Gilpin’s Point, where he had heard there was a vessel about to sail.” He hid in these woods until morning and was able to catch the boat. Once in Baltimore, Joseph made his way to Underground Railroad agent William Still in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. From there, Cornish was quickly forwarded to agent Sydney H. Gay in New York City. Cornish eventually made his way to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, where Harriet Tubman, her brothers and many others from Maryland’s Eastern Shore were settling into their newfound freedom.
AMANI WILLETT, Night Crossing, Susquehanna River, Outside of Columbia, PA., 2011
40 x 50 inches | 101.6 x 127 cm.
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
The water in this location of the Susquehanna River is shallow and enabled many attempts for crossing the river at night. And because of the county’s location near the Mason-Dixie line, it was a route heavily traveled by freedom-seekers.
Installation view
AMANI WILLETT, Wade in the Water, 2024
11 x 14 inches | 25.56 x 27.94 cm.
Archival pigment print of AI-generated image
Edition of 5
Installation view
AMANI WILLETT, Bowen’s Basement, Joshua Bowen Smith’s House, Cambridge, MA., 2011
40 x 50 inches | 101.6 x 127 cm.
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
Smith was an ardent abolitionist and state senator. Throughout his life Smith fought vigorously for the abolitionist cause. Along with Lewis Hayden he publicly denounced the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which made it a federal crime to assist run-away slaves or impede the process of their re-apprehension. Furthermore he aided fugitive slaves by employing them as caterers in his business. It is rumored that he hid slaves in the basement of his house.
AMANI WILLETT, Grand Depot, Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn, NY., 2011
20 x 24 inches | 50.8 x 60.96 cm.
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
Church of the Pilgrims, often called the “Grand Depot” because of the number of slaves that came through this location. Hundreds of escaped slaves were hidden in this basement.
Installation view
AMANI WILLETT, Great Dismal Swamp, The Great Dismal Swamp National Park,North Carolina/Virginia Border, 2011
20 x 24 inches | 50.8 x 60.96 cm.
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
The Great Dismal Swamp made an ideal place for those that didn’t want to be found. For centuries, slaves came to the Dismal Swamp seeking freedom. For many, the sprawl of densely forested wetlands on the Virginia-North Carolina border was a stopping point on their journey northward. For others, the swamp became a permanent home where they established hidden, largely self-sufficient settlements called “Maroon” communities. Maroon communities developed throughout the American South, especially in inaccessible swampy areas. Recent research suggests that as many as 50,000 maroons may have lived in the swamp.
AMANI WILLETT, In the Swamp, 2024
11 x 14 inches | 25.56 x 27.94 cm.
Archival pigment print of AI-generated image
Edition of 5
Installation view
Installation view
AMANI WILLETT, Columbia Bridge, Site of the Former Columbia Bridge, Columbia, PA., 2011
40 x 50 inches | 101.6 x 127 cm.
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
A view of the site of the original Columbia Bridge which served as a landmark for fugitive slaves looking to cross the river. So important was Columbia in the slave-sheltering business that some think the term, Underground Railroad, was coined here.
AMANI WILLETT, Cotton - The Reason for This Whole Mess, 2024
14 x 11 inches | 27.94 x 25.56 cm.
Archival pigment print of AI-generated image
Edition of 5
Installation view
AMANI WILLETT, Resting, 2024
11 x 14 inches | 25.56 x 27.94 cm.
Archival pigment print of AI-generated image
Edition of 5
Installation view
AMANI WILLETT, Christiana Riot, Site of the Christiana Riot, Christiana, PA., 2011
40 x 50 inches | 101.6 x 127 cm.
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
The 1850 federal Fugitive Slave Act strengthened the position of slave-owners seeking to capture runaways. Pursuing four escaped slaves, Maryland farmer Edward Gorsuch arrived on Sept. 11, 1851, at the Christiana home of William Parker, an African American who was giving them refuge. Neighbors and local residents defended fugitive slaves with firearms, killing Gorsuch, the slave-owner. Southerners demanded the hanging of those responsible. But after the first defendant was acquitted, the government dropped the case. The trial was the first nationally-covered challenge to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and did much to polarize the national debate over the slavery issue.
Amani Willett (American, b. 1975) is a Brooklyn and Boston-based photographer whose practice is driven by conceptual ideas surrounding family, history, memory, and the social environment.
Working primarily with the book form, his three monographs have been published to widespread critical acclaim. Disquiet (Damiani, 2013), The Disappearance of Joseph Plummer (Overlapse, 2017), and A Parallel Road (Overlapse 2020) were selected by Photo-Eye as “best books” of the year and have been highlighted in over 70 publications including Photograph Magazine, PDN, Hyperallergic, Lensculture, New York Magazine, 1000 Words, NPR, The British Journal of Photography, Collector Daily and Buzzfeed and recommended by Todd Hido, Elisabeth Biondi (former Visuals Editor of The New Yorker), Vince Aletti and David Campany, among others.
Amani’s photographs are also featured in the books American Geography (SF Moma/Radius Books, 2021), Bystander: A History of Street Photography (2017 edition, Laurence King Publishing), Street Photography Now (Thames and Hudson), New York: In Color (Abrams), and have been published widely in places including The Atlantic, American Photography, Newsweek, Harper’s, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Review of Books.
His work resides in the permanent collections of the Tate Modern, The Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Sir Elton John Photography Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Oxford University, and Harvard University, among others.
Amani completed an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts, NY in 2012 and a BA from Wesleyan University in 1997. In addition to his artistic practice, Amani is associate professor of photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.