DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2023.1.3| WILLIAMS-FORSON: SEEKING THE ABSENT POTENTIAL_ INSIGHTOUT 1(2023) 46 case that sat below the larger banner contained an advertisement for a 1769 slave auction that took place in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as faux fish and coffee beans that were created to illustrate some of the foods that were bought and traded(Fig. 3 and 4 Banners 2 and 3“Producing Food/Negotia­ting Power”) The layout of these first three banners echoed the content focusing on enslaved Africans whose culina­ry labour included work both inside and outside of the slaveowner’s home and the plantation at large. These installations were outside of the actual exhibi­tion space to reflect the public sphere. Once visitors entered the library, they came into contact with the remaining three banners, all of which presented in­formation about what took place within the domestic realm. Fig. 3: Large display banner representing power negotiations by an enslaved man and other representations of maritime commerce. Photo taken by the author, 2016. Banners 4, 5, and 6 – The Kitchen and the“Big House” Banners 4, 5, and 6 moved the visitor into the libra­ry installation space, and they emphasised activities that took place inside the home. Banner 5,“Kitchen Contradictions”, illustrated the chaotic, noisy, smoky, smelly, sweltering, and dangerous nature of an early American kitchen, particularly hearth cooking. Using the“Cooks Day” entry, we stated,“Enslaved cooks, such as Lucy and Nathan at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, started work at 4:00 A.M.” The work of preparing tasty meals over an open fire required hard and precise work. This latter point was neces­sary to state because it is and was often believed that Black cooks lacked culinary skills and simply in­tuitively knew how to cook. Research indicates the fallacies of this thinking, with records showing that several of the most esteemed early African cooks— especially those who cooked for presidents and the wealthy—were trained in and throughout Europe. Skill and precision were also necessary because if not, cooks and scullions, even children who were being watched, could get burned. If cooks uninten­tionally misgauged fire temperatures, they might de­stroy food. The changing seasons could spoil meats and turn vegetables to mush. Fig. 4: The display case flanking banner 2 held a book with an article on the“Natural History of Coffee”, a glass plate on cocoa beans, and faux coffee beans to complement the di­scussion of maritime trade. Photo taken by the author, 2016. The“Kitchen Contradictions” banner held an image taken from the painting Washington’s Kitchen, Mount Vernon by Eastman Johnson(1864). The central image is taken from a painting that shows an enslaved