DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2023.1.3| WILLIAMS-FORSON: SEEKING THE ABSENT POTENTIAL_ INSIGHTOUT 1(2023) 45 Banner 1 – Introduction to the Exhibition The flow of the exhibition follows the logic posited by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, whose TED talk highlights“the danger of the single story”. That is the story that tells only one narrative of a person or group of people, thereby becoming the defining truth, no matter how false it may be. Part of an intersec­tional framework requires that this approach be de­bunked and that the myriad stories of Black lives come to the fore. This was the aim and intention of the exhi­bition. As the story unfolds, the viewer is made aware of the various enslaved persons who help to ensure that the meals are complete—the butler, Frank Lee, the teenage waiter, Marcus, and the cooks, Lucy and Na­than. By contextualising the cook’s day within a larger discussion of the labour and technology of enslaved peoples, we can convey the various ways in which pow­er informs meals, from food acquisition to preparation, presentation, consumption, to disposal. We can also highlight the“fires” of enslavement, especially in the kitchen, to reveal how brutal it was and how the work was often forced with threats of humiliation, separa­tion from family and community, even rape or death. The introductory banner and texts set the stage by communicating how meals can tell us how power is exchanged between and among different peoples, races, genders, and classes. It also highlighted the Chesapeake region of the United States and the ways in which early Europeans relied upon the labour of Native Americans on whose land they had settled, of enslaved Africans who had been forcefully brought to this new world, and of indentured servants for life-sa­ving knowledge of farming and food acquisition. This banner explained how settler colonialists used these human resources, the natural environment, and mariti­me trade to gain economic prosperity. Finally, the first banner indicated that Mount Vernon was simply being used as an example for exploring how labour was ex­tracted and the ways that foods tell stories that are beyond taste and sustenance. To convey this story, the banner included the frontal image of the plantation site, a maritime compass, a body of water, and the visage of an enslaved woman that mirrored the image on the diary page of the “Cooks Day” schedule. The banner colour was a warm brown to imply the relatively somber tone of the nar­rative but also to prove to be inviting to viewers. Banners 2 and 3 – Producing Food/ Negotiating Power The focal point for banners 2 and 3 were the water­ways. Consequently, over half the banner is a dark blue representing the power of the Potomac River and maritime trade and activity. Banner 2 highlights how power was negotiated between George Wa­shington and the enslaved. Though Washington used the Potomac River for an extensive fishing enterprise and grew food for sustenance and commerce, he re­lied upon the skill, labour, and knowledge of the ens­laved at Mount Vernon for much of his wealth. Slaves used this position as a negotiating tool to bargain for labour arrangements that provided some degree of autonomy. To emphasise the possibility of this type of negotiation taking place, we used a portion of the painting Washington at Mount Vernon, 1797, by Nat­haniel Currier(1852), which depicted an enslaved man talking to a white man on horseback as if explai­ning a situation. We extracted this image to illustrate the possibility of negotiating. Rivers and waterways were important transporta­tion routes and commerce centres. Markets would feature food and luxury goods like imported coffees, but they also contained human chattel, in the form of a seemingly inexhaustible source of slave labour— men, women, and children. The waterways were also a means by which some enslaved people sought to escape by secreting themselves aboard boats and steamships. To emphasise all of this, the banner con­tains images of slave ships as well as some of the goods that could be found in the market. The display