(Panopticon Gallery) You describe the project as making the "unseen seen." How do you hope viewers engage with the histories you’re bringing to light?

(Bryant) It's my hope that viewers start to consider or reconsider the histories that surround them. We literally live on top of past lives, and I want people to think deeply about whose history gets shepherded forward into the future and why. Once I learned about some of the stories of persecution and perseverance my work deals with, I found I couldn't ignore them. Instead, I was moved to erect a memorial of sorts for others to engage with. Speaking of memorial—in the making of this project I often went back to a quote by the late, great author Toni Morrison where she's discussing why she wrote her novel Beloved: "There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves...There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There's no 300-foot tower, there's no small bench by the road...And because such a place doesn't exist...the book had to."

How do you see your work in conversation with larger discussions about race, land, and memory in the U.S.?

My work is a part of these larger discussions through a lens of specificity...these specific groups, on this specific island, in this specific area of the Northeastern United States. However, I believe it's resonant within the broader dialogue because of the universality of its themes. Connection to a landscape, cultural tradition, community, spirituality—those are lasting themes when you look at people of color in the United States and how they have persevered through the many forms of discrimination and hate.

Were there any discoveries—stories, images, or moments—that surprised you during your research?

My entry point into the project was a story I stumbled across in a local Martha's Vineyard newspaper from 1854, focused on an enslaved man named Randall Burton, and a Wampanoag woman named Beulah Vanderhoop. Burton had fled an offshore ship and made his way across the island while being pursued by the local sheriff. He was found first by Vanderhoop, who gave him shelter in her home before helping him board a ship back to the mainland, from where he reportedly reached freedom in Canada. The entire narrative was documented in the Vineyard Gazette as it was happening, and I was enraptured by these archived texts. The story of these two communities intersecting fueled my way into the work. Almost two years later, through a chance encounter with an oral historian on the island, I was guided to the house that Vanderhoop once lived in. It's the abandoned house covered in wisteria that is part of my hanging at Panopticon. Finding this puzzle piece that was hiding in plain sight (down an unmarked dirt road) years later was a full circle moment, reminding me why I found the stories of these communities to be so important.

Collaboration played a major role in this work. What was that process like, and were there any unexpected moments that shaped the project?

Although I'm a part of the extended community of the island, almost all of my photographic subjects and resources were new relationships formed during the course of several years. These included members of the Wampanoag Tribe, who I connected with at an individual level. After explaining the "why" behind my work, one person would refer me to another, and from there I would be pointed in a handful of directions. Sometimes, those new relationships wouldn't result in a new photograph, but would instead turn me down a road (sometimes literally) I hadn't considered before. A significant part of the process is that I'm inherently a research-driven person. By reaching out to local archivists and oral historians and starting to incorporate their resources into my project, it quickly became an act of collaboration.