The cotton banner on view in the exhibition Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in the Early American North depicts Pedro Tovookan Parris’ journey from East Africa to New England in the early 1840s. In three evocative images, Pedro Tovookan recorded his experiences of enslavement, trans-Atlantic transportation, and, ultimately, a life of freedom in western Maine. In this gallery talk at the Museum, Professor McNamara will discuss her research into the life of Pedro Tovookan Parris and his extraordinary visual autobiography. 

Space for this program is limited and registration is required. For details or to register, please email: education@folkartmuseum.org. 

About the speaker:

Martha McNamara is an art and architectural historian who specializes in New England’s visual and material culture.  She is Director of the New England Arts and Architecture Program, co-Director of Architecture, and Senior Lecturer in the Art Department at Wellesley College.  For the spring semester 2024, she is the Stern Visiting Professor in Architectural History at Columbia University’s Art History and Archaeology Department. Professor McNamara is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Tovookan’s Tale: Pictorial Autobiography and Anti-Slavery Narrative in Antebellum America that examines the life and work of artist Pedro Tovookan Parris and his experience of slavery and freedom in the 19th-century Atlantic world.