The following photographs are made in Gore Place located in Waltham, Massachusetts. The preserved mansion of Christopher Gore, and the work place of a paternal ancestor, Robert Roberts. In 1827, Roberts published The House Servant's Directory, which became a commercially successful guide to white employers and their Black domestics. The text compiles observations on etiquette, behavior, and labor.

I photographed in Gore Place for the period of a year while intaking my ancestors language for the first time. The resulting photographs move between still life and self-portrait performance. I mark this work as my first serious inquiry into observing how objects, and the material traces of colonial archives, shape a racialized presence.

Image: Roberts Bedroom