American Gold: A Ship of Human Bondage - Series

On June 19, 2024, New Orleans Artist Marcus Brown unveiled three augmented reality (AR) exhibits presented as part of New York City (NYC) Parks’ “Art in the Parks” program. 

New exhibits include American Gold I at North 5th Park and Pier in Brooklyn and American Gold II at Queensbridge Park in Queens.

American Gold: A Ship of Human Bondage is a musically interactive Augmented Reality (AR) sculpture installation mini series based on slave ships and enslaved people. 

Each installation describes captives as figures made of gold.  In 1808, the United States banned the international slave trade with the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves. “American shipowners, merchants, seamen and corrupt officials, based largely in New York City, collaborated with foreign allies to continue shipping captive Africans via the Middle Passage all the way into the 1860s.”[1] American Gold aims to draw attention to the monetary value of captives and the inhumane treatment of African captives. American Gold makes the slave ship an almost invisible structure that floats above the viewer. giving the viewer a glimpse of how many people were squeezed into a slaving vessel from below. The installation is part of a larger series of art installations about slavery called Slavery Trails. Slavery Trails is a musically interactive site-specific Augmented Reality (AR) installation series based on slave ships and enslaved people, placed on historical sites throughout the United States. This project will be exhibited in New York in 2024. 

[1] John Harris, “The Atlantic Slave Trade Continued Illegally in America until the Civil War,” HISTORY, January 22, 2024, https://www.history.com/news/us-illegal-slave-trade-civil-war.