Vessels of Slavery: Forget Me Not is a collaboration between artists Susi Ryan, Christle Rawlins-Jackson, and IlaSahai Prouty. Using their collective expertise in community-based art and engagement, quilting, historical research, and individual artistic practices, these artists have conducted research and held several community conversations over the past two years. During this period, they developed this summer’s outdoor installation at the Cape Ann Museum Green to explore and interpret the history of slavery on Cape Ann. 

The project has moved through four cycles, each rooted in a week-long stay on Cape Ann: Reclamation, Trade Winds, Persistence, and Honoring. The cumulative research and stories on display will feature six large ‘sail-quilts’.  

During each cycle, the artists conducted intimate investigations in the Cape Ann Museum Library & Archives and invited the community to consider the stories of the enslaved people of Cape Ann and the legacy of the slave economy for Cape Ann’s seaports. Parallel to their research, the artists opened conversations with and between community members and institutions, holding space within the collective for acknowledging, grieving, honoring, and celebrating the enslaved and freed people of Cape Ann.  

The artists were brought together by the work of Doris Prouty, an African American quilter who made Gloucester her home for nearly 50 years, when her work was exhibited posthumously at the Cape Ann Museum in 2022.

Vessels of Slavery: Forget Me Not will be on display from August 10 – September 1, 2024 at the Cape Ann Museum Green, 13 Poplar Street, Gloucester, MA. The installation will be on view Fridays and Saturdays from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm and Sundays from 1:00 – 4:00 pm.

Vessels of Slavery: Forget Me Not is coordinated and funded by the Cape Ann Museum with support from the MassHumanities Expanding Massachusetts Stories Grant and the Essex Heritage Partnership Grant. The residency stays at Manship Artists Residency are funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Prometheus Circle of the Manship Artists Residency, the Revered Anne Deneen, and the Bruce J. Anderson Foundation.

Project description Courtesy the Cape Ann Museum.