Exhibition on the Middle Passage opens Feb. 6 at SACD event

The infamous Brookes Slave Ship is the inspiration behind an exhibit that will open Feb. 6 in the exhibition space of the Loranger Architecture Building on University of Detroit Mercy’s McNichols Campus.

Hosted by UDM’s School of Architecture & Community Development and College of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, the exhibition is titled “Brookes (Revisited): Architect Elgin Cleckley Uses Architectural Techniques to Retell the Story of the Middle Passage” and is designed to provide context and background about the iconic drawing “Stowage of the British Slave Ship Brooks Under the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1778.”

Using models of each of the ship’s 11 voyages and sections of full-scale models of Brookes’ third voyage of 740 people to the United States to be sold into chattel slavery.

The models are supported by drawings evoking the 43 days of what is known as the Middle Passage. Folded abstractions called “memory markers” are introduced, representing an ancestor’s head-to-hip, hip-to-knee, and knee-to-foot, with colors paying homage to West African and African diaspora fabrics.

Cleckley is an associate professor of Architecture and the Undergraduate Program Director at University of Virginia. He leads _mpathic design, a multi-award-winning pedagogy, initiative and professional practice.

His work supports communities in Detroit and beyond wanting to tell fuller histories and narratives through design. It has been exhibited at the University of New Mexico’s School of Architecture and Planning and the University of Virginia School of Architecture.

The exhibition’s Feb. 6 opening will include a discussion with Cleckley and Detroit-based art historian, Samantha Noël who will discuss the research and creative process informing the exhibition and larger narratives of the Middle Passage. The event is from 4-7 p.m.

The exhibit runs Feb. 6-27 and is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. or by appointment. The Warren Loranger Architecture Building is on Detroit Mercy’s McNichols Campus, 4001 W. McNichols Road in Detroit.