During the c19th, hundreds of enslaved people labored in the potteries of Old Edgefield, South Carolina. Hear Me Now, opening tomorrow at @metmuseum, focuses on this work—in dialogue with contemporary artistic responses—and shows how within the industrial stoneware operation of Edgefield, potters were creating extraordinary works of art. If there is an idea that artistic agency is antithetical to enslavement, these objects show that’s entirely not the case. Hear Me Now considers the works within the context of a brutal system of repression. “When we don’t interrogate enslaved artisans in the same way we interrogate other artisans and craftspeople, we lose a big part of the story,” explains Tonya M. Matthews, President and CEO of @iaamuseum. “And not just the story then, but of the story that we are living now.” (4) Storage Jar, 1858 (“When you fill this jar with pork or beef..”) by David Drake. David Drake is one of the few named enslaved artists. He signed his pots “Dave” and added witty couplets that sometimes praised the very “noble jar” on which they were inscribed, or expressed his longing to see the stars or lost family members. Dave could have just made ‘ordinary’ jugs, but many historians think the extra-ness in Dave’s production is a form of joy, and therefore a form of resistance for an enslaved person. (1) and (3) Face Vessels c1850-80. Unknown artists. “When I was growing up in Charleston, there were general drugstores that had backrooms that sold vessels used in conjures,” explains curator and artist Wayne O’Bryant. “So when I first started seeing face jugs, it was more curiosity as of what they could have used them for, then it became more I wonder if they used them in the same way.” (2) Large Jug, Simone Leigh, 2021-22 Simone took inspiration from Edgefield potters. Leigh said in a recent interview that “Upon seeing Dave’s pots, [she] felt compelled to feel the walls.” She put one hand inside and one outside of the work to feel the way her worked. For her, it was a way to commune with the potter.