Artist Statement by Marcus Brown

Slavery Trails is a deeply personal project—one that combines augmented reality (AR), sound, and site-specific storytelling to honor the lives of enslaved people and reveal the hidden histories of slavery in America. As an artist and a descendant of that legacy, I created this work to confront the silence that lingers around so many spaces where enslaved people once lived, labored, and were sold.

Each installation is anchored in a physical location with historical weight: street corners, ports, courthouses, and marketplaces where human beings were once treated as property. When viewed through a smartphone or tablet, these places are transformed by AR sculptures—figures I sculpt by hand using 3D modeling software and clay. Many of these digital figures are based on my family, friends, and myself. They are accompanied by original music and sound, composed to evoke memory, grief, resistance, and resilience.

One of the most meaningful sites in the series is located at Chartres Street and Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans—the exact place where Solomon Northup, a free Black man, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. I placed a virtual self-portrait there, grounding my body and voice in his story—and in the countless other stories of the enslaved whose names history has erased.

Slavery Trails is more than a collection of digital sculptures. It is a decentralized memorial—a way of using modern tools to reckon with the past and restore dignity to lives that were stolen. My goal is to transform public spaces into places of memory and healing, especially for communities still shaped by the legacy of slavery. I want people to see what has been hidden—and to feel the weight of that history in the places they walk every day.