Metal often comes up when discussing the methods of punishment inflicted on others throughout history. Many other devices, hooks, and contraptions were forged in metal designed to inflict the maximum amount of suffering on the subject with some even designed to kill. You can find examples of these in museums and archives all over the world, and sometimes in the possession of descendants of plantation owners. From the moment of capture in Africa, iron chains and shackles were used to restrict movement, prevent escape, and instil fear. These were heavy, constantly rubbing against the skin, causing extreme discomfort for those forced to wear them.

In contrast, metal was also used to adorn the bodies of the enslaved in less harmful way. In art galleries and stately homes across Europe, you can find 16th and 17th century portraits of nobility with their young black slaves in tow. If you look closely enough, you will often notice these young slaves with a glimmer of silver around their necks. Many slave owners had their household slaves wear fine silver collars engraved with the owner’s name, address or family crest. These are the collars you can see in these paintings – paintings such as Young Negro with a Bow by Hyacinthe Rigaud and Portrait of Madame Claude Lambert de Thorigny by Nicolas de Largillierre.

A neck piece of precious metal that in one context is a marker of wealth in the wearer, is instead a signifier of servitude and the wealth of the owner. It’s a status symbol.

The idea that a slave would be adorned with something so ornate like a silver collar is one of the many paradoxes of enslavement.

Giving something of value to someone with no value, doesn’t quite make sense.

But this very idea inspired me to use precious metal to recreate these tools and markers of oppression, some wearable and some a little more violent.

The following works are exploration of creating little precious things with deeper, darker meanings.