Cameron Rowland
Public Use, 2023
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Tower MMK entryways and exits
The building located at Taunustor 1 was developed by Commerzbank and Tishman Speyer. To fulfill the city of Frankfurt am Main’s public use requirement, the developers contracted with the Museum für Moderne Kunst to include a location of the museum on the second floor of the building. The developers agreed to subsidize the museum’s rent and utilities for 15 years.
Museum für Moderne Kunst was one of the 15 cultural institutions created in Frankfurt am Main between 1968 and 1994 that became part of the city’s Museumsufer project. Between 1950 and 1992, the city’s cultural funding budget grew nearly twentyfold. City taxes on financial firms fueled cultural development. Cultural development was used to attract workers to expand the city’s financial sector.
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Tower MMK is a public museum inside of a private office building in the banking quarter. Tower MMK materializes the relationship between Frankfurt’s public cultural development and private financial development. Tower MMK is subsidized through the rent paid by the numerous financial corporations located in the building. These include inheritors of the profits of slavery: Barclays, Schroders, J.P. Morgan, and Credit Suisse.
Frankfurt am Main has been the financial center of Germany since the 17th century.
Cameron Rowland
Public Use, 2023
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Tower MMK entryways and exits
The building located at Taunustor 1 was developed by Commerzbank and Tishman Speyer. To fulfill the city of Frankfurt am Main’s public use requirement, the developers contracted with the Museum für Moderne Kunst to include a location of the museum on the second floor of the building. The developers agreed to subsidize the museum’s rent and utilities for 15 years.
Museum für Moderne Kunst was one of the 15 cultural institutions created in Frankfurt am Main between 1968 and 1994 that became part of the city’s Museumsufer project. Between 1950 and 1992, the city’s cultural funding budget grew nearly twentyfold. City taxes on financial firms fueled cultural development. Cultural development was used to attract workers to expand the city’s financial sector.
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Tower MMK is a public museum inside of a private office building in the banking quarter. Tower MMK materializes the relationship between Frankfurt’s public cultural development and private financial development. Tower MMK is subsidized through the rent paid by the numerous financial corporations located in the building. These include inheritors of the profits of slavery: Barclays, Schroders, J.P. Morgan, and Credit Suisse.
Frankfurt am Main has been the financial center of Germany since the 17th century.
Cameron Rowland
Public Use, 2023
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Tower MMK entryways and exits
The building located at Taunustor 1 was developed by Commerzbank and Tishman Speyer. To fulfill the city of Frankfurt am Main’s public use requirement, the developers contracted with the Museum für Moderne Kunst to include a location of the museum on the second floor of the building. The developers agreed to subsidize the museum’s rent and utilities for 15 years.
Museum für Moderne Kunst was one of the 15 cultural institutions created in Frankfurt am Main between 1968 and 1994 that became part of the city’s Museumsufer project. Between 1950 and 1992, the city’s cultural funding budget grew nearly twentyfold. City taxes on financial firms fueled cultural development. Cultural development was used to attract workers to expand the city’s financial sector.
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Tower MMK is a public museum inside of a private office building in the banking quarter. Tower MMK materializes the relationship between Frankfurt’s public cultural development and private financial development. Tower MMK is subsidized through the rent paid by the numerous financial corporations located in the building. These include inheritors of the profits of slavery: Barclays, Schroders, J.P. Morgan, and Credit Suisse.
Frankfurt am Main has been the financial center of Germany since the 17th century.
Cameron Rowland
Osnaburgs, 2023
18th-century loom from Osnabrück
195 x 213 x 175 cm
Linen was the largest German export by value throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.1 Linen was the primary German good produced explicitly for the slave trade. During this time, labor costs in Central Europe lagged behind those in Western Europe, rendering Germany “a low-wage region, which oriented its production toward high-price Western markets.”2 German merchants took advantage of this position by maintaining the depressed wages of the former peasant class, who they paid on a piece-work system. These merchants made German linen a staple of the slave economy by ensuring it was sold for less than the competition. The less money the slave owner spent on clothing, feeding, and housing slaves, the greater the plantation’s net profits would be. The slave economy was an essential market for the products of underpaid wage labor in Germany, and elsewhere in Europe.
“Osnaburgs” or “osnabrigs,” were made in Osnabrück. According to a 1744 report on the British linen trade, all the black people in the West Indies were “generally clothed with German linens, from 6d to 9d an Ell, called Osnaburghs.”3 Another report indicated that all 70,000 enslaved people in Barbados were “usually clothed with Foreign ‘Osnabrughs.’”4 This practice translated into law in instances when the slave codes prohibited enslaved people from wearing anything other than “negro cloth.” The 1735 South Carolina slave codes dictated that:
Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid. That no owner or proprietor of any negro slave or other slave whatsoever, (except livery men or boys,) shall permit or suffer such negro or other slave to have or wear any sort of apparel whatsoever, finer, other, or of greater value, than negro cloth, duffelds, coarse kearsies, osnabrigs, blue linnen, checked linnen or coarse garlix or calicoes, checked cottons or scotch plaids, not exceeding ten shillings per yard for the said checked cottons, scotch plaids, garlix or calico, under the pain of forfeiting all and every such apparel and garment.5
Black fugitives were tracked by their appearance. Fugitive slave ads circulated descriptions of black people who had run from bondage. These descriptions allowed any white person who read them to function as a deputy of the slave patrol and a sentry of the plantation. Osnaburgs were an identifier of enslavement. As such, they were one of the most common descriptors of fugitives from slavery.
1. Klaus Weber, “Germany and the Early Modern Atlantic World: Economic Involvement and Historiography,” in Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany, 1650–1850, ed. Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, Josef Köstlbauer, and Sarah Lentz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 46.
2. Klaus Weber, “Deutschland, der atlantische Sklavenhandel und die Plantagenwirtschaft der Neuen Welt,” Journal of Modern European History 7, no. 1 (March 2009): 57–58; Klaus Weber, “Linen, Silver, Slaves, and Coffee: A Spatial Approach to Central Europe’s Entanglements with the Atlantic Economy,” Culture & History Digital Journal 4, no. 2 (December 2015): 11.
3. Weber, “Germany and the Early Modern Atlantic World,” 32.
4. Weber, “Linen, Silver, Slaves, and Coffee,” 8.
5. “An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes and Other Slaves, 1735,” in The Statutes at Large of South Carolina: Containing the Acts Relating to Charleston, Courts, Slaves, and Rivers, ed. David J McCord (Columbia: A. S. Johnston, 1840), 396.
Cameron Rowland
Bug trap, 2023
Rope
Rental
“Bugs in the wheat” was code among the enslaved. It meant that slave patrollers had discovered their secret meeting. Enslaved people protected these meetings by tying a rope across the path. The rope tripped the patrol horse and threw the patroller.
Cameron Rowland
Bankrott, 2023
Indefinite debt
Reparations were paid to slave owners. Compensated emancipation allowed slave owners to retain the value they had assigned to the lives of slaves in addition to the profits they had extracted from slaves’ labor. Compensated emancipation in Haiti, Brazil, Cuba, Washington D.C., the British colonies, the Danish colonies, the Dutch colonies, and German East Africa paid slave owners for their loss of enslaved property. Slave owners and their financiers were provided monetary compensation, high-interest debt obligations, and indentured servitude as repayment.
British compensation payments fueled the growth of British financial institutions that held outstanding plantation mortgages including Barclays, Lloyds Bank, and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Haitian compensation debt, originally paid by formerly enslaved people to French slave owners, has been bought and sold by numerous banks including Crédit Industriel et Commercial, Crédit du Nord, Citibank, and ODDO BHF. These compensation payments continue to grow within European banks alongside the profits of the slave economy. The value of slave life, labor, and reproductive capacity remains integral to European financial institutions, corporations, universities, museums, and governments.
Frankfurt am Main is the monetary center of the eurozone and houses offices of nearly every major European financial firm. The concentration of financial firms in Frankfurt am Main has enriched the city since the 17th century.
A loan of 20,000 euros was issued to the Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst from Bankrott Inc., a company created for the purpose of holding an indefinite debt. Because it is a demand loan, no payments can be made until the lender demands repayment. Bankrott Inc. will never demand repayment. The debt will accrue interest indefinitely. It will increase at a rate of 18 percent each year, the highest rate legally allowable. The Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst is a city government department, Amt 45 i. For this reason this debt is owed by the city of Frankfurt am Main.
As reparation, this debt is a restriction on the continued accumulation derived from slavery. As a negation of value, it does not seek to redistribute the wealth derived from slave life but seeks to burden its inheritors.
Cameron Rowland
macandal, 2023
Oxalic acid
37.5 x 30.5 x 67 cm
Packets of materials that could invoke spirits, protect against punishment, and poison slave masters were called macandals. They were at the center of a plot in 1757 to poison all the white people in Haiti. The plot was organized by hundreds of enslaved and free black people. All macandals were subsequently outlawed. Their trade and use continued despite their criminalization.
Enslaved people throughout the Atlantic world used arsenic, manioc juice, ground glass, and oxalic acid to poison overseers, masters, masters’ children, and livestock. Oxalic acid is a stain remover and household cleaner.
Cameron Rowland
macandal, 2023
Oxalic acid
37.5 x 30.5 x 67 cm
Packets of materials that could invoke spirits, protect against punishment, and poison slave masters were called macandals. They were at the center of a plot in 1757 to poison all the white people in Haiti. The plot was organized by hundreds of enslaved and free black people. All macandals were subsequently outlawed. Their trade and use continued despite their criminalization.
Enslaved people throughout the Atlantic world used arsenic, manioc juice, ground glass, and oxalic acid to poison overseers, masters, masters’ children, and livestock. Oxalic acid is a stain remover and household cleaner.
Cameron Rowland
Haus zur Goldenen Waage 2018, 2023
Postcards 5 euros each
The House of the Golden Scales was established as a colonial spice trade house in 1619. It was destroyed in 1944 during World War II. Between 2004 and 2018 the city of Frankfurt am Main rebuilt the medieval and renaissance buildings that were once the center of the city. This is known as Frankfurt’s New Old Town or Neue Altstadt. The House of the Golden Scales was reopened in 2018. It now functions as a coffee shop and tourist attraction. The reconstructed House of the Golden Scales is a monument to European colonial domination.
Cameron Rowland
Amt 45 i, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, 2023
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Amt 45 i, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, 2023
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Amt 45 i, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, 2023
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Amt 45 i, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, 2023
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Ingenio, 2023
19th-century sugar kettle, made in England, used in Louisiana
185 x 185 x 68 cm
In Spanish the colonial sugar mill was called the ingenio, which meant “the engine.” The mill was a necessary component of the sugar plantation. Harvested cane had to be milled quickly to keep it from rotting. The mill operated 16–18 hours a day. Enslaved black people grew the cane, harvested the cane, crushed the cane, and boiled the juice. The mill consisted of a series of open kettles that were made in Europe, exported to the colonies, and used by slaves to reduce cane juice into syrup and raw crystals.
The ingenio operated through systematic torture. The regularity of punishment kept the sugar mill in near-constant production. “The slaves received the whip with more certainty and regularity than they received their food. It was the incentive to work and the guardian of discipline.” Sugar was made this way for 400 years.
Cameron Rowland
Deputies, Maxwell Graham/Essex Street, New York, 2021
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Church Avenue and Bedford Avenue, 2021
Bench in Seward Park
The dread of “an uprising of blacks” in 1722 prompted an act providing that all negroes and blacks be buried by daylight. The act was amended afterward so that not more than twelve negroes should attend a funeral. The penalty for the violation of this statute was a public flogging. Furthermore, the slave was to be buried without any outward signs of grief or any ceremonial tokens, such as a pall, gloves or flowers.
—New York Times, April 12, 1903
In 1991, the Government Services Administration began construction on the Ted Weiss Federal Building in New York City. During construction human remains were disinterred. Historical analysis identified the site as a Black burial ground. Black protests against the GSA’s treatment of the site led to a large-scale archeological survey. The building was still built. Part of the site was reserved for The African Burial Ground Monument on Duane Street. By naming it “The African Burial Ground Monument,” the site is portrayed as the only Black burial ground in the city.
There are numerous unmarked Black burial grounds throughout New York City.
At Church Avenue and Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn there is a 17th–19th century unmarked Black burial ground.
At Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx there is a 17th–19th century unmarked Black burial ground.
At 90th Street and Corona Avenue in Queens there is a 19th–20th century unmarked Black burial ground.
At 126th Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan there is a 17th–19th century unmarked Black burial ground.
At 212th Street and 10th Avenue in Manhattan there is a 17th–19th century unmarked Black burial ground.
Many of these burial grounds did not have individual plots, but were made as collective graves. Many of those buried did not own the property of their resting place. Some of these burial grounds have been built over with bus terminals, schools, car mechanics, and homes. They remain unmarked. The Black burial ground has traditionally been a site of plotting and rebellion. Their unmarked status has served this purpose.
Despite identifying as an abolitionist, William H. Seward, U.S. Secretary of State from 1861–1869, favored compensating slave owners for their loss of enslaved property and designed President Andrew Johnson’s Declaration of Amnesty in 1865, reinstating former Confederates’ property. Seward co-wrote Johnson’s 1866 veto of the Freedmen’s Bill that would have extended the existence of the Freedmen’s Bureau. He also co-wrote Johnson’s veto of the 15th Amendment, in an attempt to continue the disenfranchisement of Black people. Seward’s vision of reunification allowed for emancipation, but foreclosed the recognition of Black people as human.
Five unauthorized benches have been put in Seward Park. These benches are the same 19th century design that is used throughout the park. These benches are titled after the locations of five unmarked Black burial grounds throughout the city. The displaced acknowledgements of these burial grounds intervene on Seward’s memorial. They are meant for resting or remembering or plotting.
Cameron Rowland
Deputies, Maxwell Graham/Essex Street, New York, 2021
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Deputies, Maxwell Graham/Essex Street, New York, 2021
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Life and Property, 2021
Recording of NYPD radio communications in Manhattan,
Recording of NYPD radio communications in Brooklyn,
Recording of NYPD radio communications in the Bronx,
Recording of NYPD radio communications in Queens,
Recording of NYPD radio communications in Staten Island / Citywide
The NYPD does not retain publicly accessible recordings of its two-way radio communications. These communications can be accessed live using a UHF radio scanner. Due to the amount of simultaneous radio communication throughout the city, multiple scanners are necessary to receive all transmissions. Public access to recordings of these transmissions allows these internal communications to be reviewed collectively. When Life and Property is exhibited, recordings are produced continuously. Each day the prior 24 hours of recordings are made publicly accessible on the exhibitor’s website. The recordings for each day of the exhibition are hosted as documentation.
Looking out, documenting, and inverting surveillance have always been practiced by Black targets of policing. Internal documentation of the police that is produced by the police is only available at the discretion of the police. External documentation of the police is essential to understanding what the police actually do.
The radio communications of the NYPD make evident that the vast majority of police dispatches are in response to 911calls reporting perceived disorder. The dispatches show how frequently callers report people to the police for “loitering,” “being disorderly,” “refusing to leave the business,” “panhandling,” “drinking and gambling,” “harassment,” “trespassing,” “disputing,” and “being uncooperative.”
The purpose of calling the police is to subject the accused to scrutiny, dispossession, incarceration, and death by enforcement. Calling the police to stop violence discounts the violence inflicted by the police. Survived and Punished organizes in support of incarcerated survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Their publication Research across the Walls details that:
In 2000, a study of domestic-violence survivors under New York State’s mandatory arrest policies found that survivors of domestic violence were arrested in 27 percent of cases reported through a domestic violence hotline…[A] decade-long study found that a law enforcement officer is charged with sexual misconduct every5 days, and that motorists, crime victims and witnesses and young people are the most frequent targets.
As a paramilitary institution, the primary object of the police is the protection of white citizens and the property they own. White citizenship remains the benchmark for legal protection the United States. 42 USC § 1981, “Equal rights under the law,” last updated in 1991, states that:
(a) Statement of equal rights. All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
The designation of who the police are sworn to protect is determined by the de jure and de facto withholding of citizenship. The NYPD’s mission statement openly states that its protection is contingent on citizenship as it pledges to:
Protect the lives and property of our fellow citizens and impartially enforce the law.
Cameron Rowland
Life and Property, 2021
Recording of NYPD radio communications in Manhattan,
Recording of NYPD radio communications in Brooklyn,
Recording of NYPD radio communications in the Bronx,
Recording of NYPD radio communications in Queens,
Recording of NYPD radio communications in Staten Island / Citywide
The NYPD does not retain publicly accessible recordings of its two-way radio communications. These communications can be accessed live using a UHF radio scanner. Due to the amount of simultaneous radio communication throughout the city, multiple scanners are necessary to receive all transmissions. Public access to recordings of these transmissions allows these internal communications to be reviewed collectively. When Life and Property is exhibited, recordings are produced continuously. Each day the prior 24 hours of recordings are made publicly accessible on the exhibitor’s website. The recordings for each day of the exhibition are hosted as documentation.
Looking out, documenting, and inverting surveillance have always been practiced by Black targets of policing. Internal documentation of the police that is produced by the police is only available at the discretion of the police. External documentation of the police is essential to understanding what the police actually do.
The radio communications of the NYPD make evident that the vast majority of police dispatches are in response to 911calls reporting perceived disorder. The dispatches show how frequently callers report people to the police for “loitering,” “being disorderly,” “refusing to leave the business,” “panhandling,” “drinking and gambling,” “harassment,” “trespassing,” “disputing,” and “being uncooperative.”
The purpose of calling the police is to subject the accused to scrutiny, dispossession, incarceration, and death by enforcement. Calling the police to stop violence discounts the violence inflicted by the police. Survived and Punished organizes in support of incarcerated survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Their publication Research across the Walls details that:
In 2000, a study of domestic-violence survivors under New York State’s mandatory arrest policies found that survivors of domestic violence were arrested in 27 percent of cases reported through a domestic violence hotline…[A] decade-long study found that a law enforcement officer is charged with sexual misconduct every5 days, and that motorists, crime victims and witnesses and young people are the most frequent targets.
As a paramilitary institution, the primary object of the police is the protection of white citizens and the property they own. White citizenship remains the benchmark for legal protection the United States. 42 USC § 1981, “Equal rights under the law,” last updated in 1991, states that:
(a) Statement of equal rights. All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
The designation of who the police are sworn to protect is determined by the de jure and de facto withholding of citizenship. The NYPD’s mission statement openly states that its protection is contingent on citizenship as it pledges to:
Protect the lives and property of our fellow citizens and impartially enforce the law.
Cameron Rowland
3 & 4 Will IV c. 73, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2020
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Mooring, 2020
AB-001-013
William Rathbone and Sons was a timber merchant company founded in Liverpool in 1746. “[T]he foundation of the Rathbone fortune and business was built on the Africa slave trade.”1 During the 18th century, they imported timber felled and milled by slaves in the West Indies and operated a number of trading ships that sailed to West Indian colonies as well as the Southern States of America.2 Rathbone and Sons’ yard occupied a large portion of the Liverpool South Docks.3 Rathbone and Sons supplied timber for slave ship builders in Liverpool until at least 1783.4 These ships carried enslaved black people who were sold in the West Indies and in British North America. Ships built in Liverpool also carried the slaves who were sold on Negro Row at the Liverpool South Docks.5
Liverpool built the world’s first wet dock in 1716, allowing cargo ships to dock directly at the port. By 1796, Liverpool had built 28 acres of docks.
Liverpool’s proximity to Ireland also not only facilitated a profitable trade, but provided a relatively safer route that allowed Liverpool ships less chance to be captured by French privateers. Additionally, the copper and brass manufactures in Lancashire and Ireland allowed for local companies that manufactured African trade goods such as manillas to carry on a prosperous export trade, further giving Liverpool a competitive edge. The relationships forged with nearby merchants not only helped secure trade goods, but also valuable credit terms.6
In 1784, Rathbone and Sons imported the first consignment of raw cotton to England from the United States.7 From this point, they became stated abolitionists and free trade advocates.8 The abolition of the “West Indian monopoly” on the import of goods to the British Isles would allow for the expansion of U.S. cotton trading. Liverpool became the primary port of 19th-century cotton importation to England. Rathbone and Sons imported American cotton to Liverpool through the American Civil War.9 The company continues to operate as the investment and wealth management firm Rathbone Brothers Plc.
The mooring at the Albert Dock: AB-001-013 is on the former location of the Rathbone warehouse.
This mooring has been rented for the purpose of not being used.
1. Jehanne Wake, Kleinwort Benson: The History of Two Families in Banking (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 15.
2. Wake, 16.
3. Adam Bowett, “The Jamaica Trade: Gillow and the Use of Mahogany in the Eighteenth Century,” Regional Furniture 12 (1998): 22.
4. Wake, 16.
5. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, 2nd ed. (1944; repr. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 52.
6. McDade, 1094.
7. Eleanor F. Rathbone, William Rathbone: A Memoir (London: Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1905), 11.
8. Wake, 15, 31.
9. Sheila Marriner, “Rathbones’ Trading Activities in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century,” Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire & Cheshire 108 (1956): 118.
Cameron Rowland
Pacotille, 2020
Brass manillas manufactured in Birmingham, 18th century; glass beads manufactured in Venice, 18th century
40 ½ × 26 ¾ × 1 ⅛ inches (103 × 68 × 3 cm)
Rental
European goods traded for enslaved people were manufactured specifically for this purpose. Manillas were used as a one-directional currency, which Europeans would offer as payment but would never accept. The Portuguese determined the value of slave life at 12–15 manillas in the early 1500s.1 Birmingham was the primary producer of brass manillas in Britain, prior to the city’s central role in the Industrial Revolution. The British also used cheap beads acquired throughout Europe to buy slaves. Eric Williams describes the “triple stimulus to British industry” provided through the export of British goods manufactured for the purchasing of slaves, the processing of raw materials grown by slaves, and the formation of new colonial markets for British-made goods.2 The production of European goods for the slave trade supported domestic manufacturing markets. British trade in West Africa was understood to be nearly 100% profit.
What renders the Negroe-Trade still more estimable and important is, that near Nine-tenths of those Negroes are paid for in Africa with British Produce and Manufactures only. . . . We send no Specie or Bullion to pay for the Products of Africa, but, ’tis certain, we bring from thence very large Quantities of Gold; . . . From which Facts, the Trade to Africa may very truly be said to be, as it were, all Profit to the Nation.3
Goods produced for the trade of slaves, which carried nearly no value in Europe, were called pacotille. Pacotille translates from French to English as “rubbish.”4
1. A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, “The Major Currencies in Nigerian History,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 2, no. 1 (December 1960): 146.
2. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, 2nd ed. (1944; repr. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 52.
3. Malachy Postlethwayt, The National and Private Advantages of the African Trade Considered, 2nd ed. (London: John and Paul Knapton, 1746; London: William Otridge, Bookseller, 1772), 3. Citations refer to the Otridge edition.
4. Marie-Hélène Corréard, “pacotille,” in Pocket Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary: French-English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 594.
Cameron Rowland
3 & 4 Will IV c. 73, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2020
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
3 & 4 Will IV c. 73, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2020
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
probability of escape, 2020
Police car searchlight
19 ⅝ × 5 ⅞ × 11 ⅜ inches (50 × 15 × 29 cm)
“[I]f any poor small free-holder or other person kill a Negro or other Slave by Night, out of the Road or Common Path, and stealing, or attempting to steal his Provision, Swine, or other Goods, he shall not be accountable for it; any Law, Statute, or Ordinance to the contrary notwithstanding.”
– ‘An Act for the Governing of Negroes,’ Barbados, 1688
“[I]f any person shall kill a slave stealing in his house or plantation by night, the said slave refusing to submit himself, such person shall not be liable to any damage or action for the same; any law, custom or usage to the contrary notwithstanding.”
– ‘An Act for the Better Ordering of Slaves,’ South Carolina, 1690
“A citizen may arrest a person in the nighttime by efficient means as the darkness and the probability of escape render necessary, even if the life of the person should be taken, when the person:
(a) has committed a felony;
(b) has entered a dwelling house without express or implied permission;
(c) has broken or is breaking into an outhouse with a view to plunder;
(d) has in his possession stolen property; or
(e) being under circumstances which raise just suspicion of his design to steal or to commit some felony,
flees when he is hailed.”
– SC Code § 17-13-20 (2012), South Carolina, current statute
Cameron Rowland
3 & 4 Will IV c. 73, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2020
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Encumbrance, 2020
Mortgage; mahogany double doors: 12 Carlton House Terrace, ground floor, front entrance
The property relation of the enslaved included and exceeded that of chattel and real estate. Plantation mortgages exemplify the ways in which the value of people who were enslaved, the land they were forced to labor on, and the houses they were forced to maintain were mutually constitutive. Richard Pares writes that “[mortgages] became commoner and commoner until, by 1800, almost every large plantation debt was a mortgage debt.” Slaves simultaneously functioned as collateral for the debts of their masters, while laboring intergenerationally under the debt of the master. The taxation of plantation products imported to Britain, as well as the taxation of interest paid to plantation lenders, provided revenue for Parliament and income for the monarch.
Mahogany became a valuable British import in the 18th century. It was used for a wide variety of architectural applications and furniture, characterizing Georgian and Regency styles. The timbers were felled and milled by slaves in Jamaica, Barbados, and Honduras among other British colonies. It is one of the few commodities of the triangular trade that continues to generate value for those who currently own it.
After taking the throne in 1820, George IV dismantled his residence, Carlton House, and the house of his parents, Buckingham House, combining elements from each to create Buckingham Palace. He built Carlton House Terrace between 1827 and 1832 on the former site of Carlton House as a series of elite rental properties to generate revenue for the Crown. All addresses at Carlton House Terrace are still owned by the Crown Estate, manager of land owned by the Crown since 1760.
12 Carlton House Terrace is leased to the Institute of Contemporary Arts. The building includes four mahogany doors and one mahogany handrail. These five mahogany elements were mortgaged by the Institute of Contemporary Arts to Encumbrance Inc. on January 16th, 2020 for £1000 each. These loans will not be repaid by the ICA. As security for these outstanding debts, Encumbrance Inc. will retain a security interest in these mahogany elements. This interest will constitute an encumbrance on the future transaction of 12 Carlton House Terrace. An encumbrance is a right or interest in real property that does not prohibit its exchange but diminishes its value. The encumbrance will remain on 12 Carlton House Terrace as long as the mahogany elements are part of the building. As reparation, this encumbrance seeks to limit the property’s continued accumulation of value for the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate provides 75% of its revenue to the Treasury and 25% directly to the monarch.
Cameron Rowland
Encumbrance, 2020
Mortgage; mahogany double doors: 12 Carlton House Terrace, ground floor, front entrance
The property relation of the enslaved included and exceeded that of chattel and real estate. Plantation mortgages exemplify the ways in which the value of people who were enslaved, the land they were forced to labor on, and the houses they were forced to maintain were mutually constitutive. Richard Pares writes that “[mortgages] became commoner and commoner until, by 1800, almost every large plantation debt was a mortgage debt.” Slaves simultaneously functioned as collateral for the debts of their masters, while laboring intergenerationally under the debt of the master. The taxation of plantation products imported to Britain, as well as the taxation of interest paid to plantation lenders, provided revenue for Parliament and income for the monarch.
Mahogany became a valuable British import in the 18th century. It was used for a wide variety of architectural applications and furniture, characterizing Georgian and Regency styles. The timbers were felled and milled by slaves in Jamaica, Barbados, and Honduras among other British colonies. It is one of the few commodities of the triangular trade that continues to generate value for those who currently own it.
After taking the throne in 1820, George IV dismantled his residence, Carlton House, and the house of his parents, Buckingham House, combining elements from each to create Buckingham Palace. He built Carlton House Terrace between 1827 and 1832 on the former site of Carlton House as a series of elite rental properties to generate revenue for the Crown. All addresses at Carlton House Terrace are still owned by the Crown Estate, manager of land owned by the Crown since 1760.
12 Carlton House Terrace is leased to the Institute of Contemporary Arts. The building includes four mahogany doors and one mahogany handrail. These five mahogany elements were mortgaged by the Institute of Contemporary Arts to Encumbrance Inc. on January 16th, 2020 for £1000 each. These loans will not be repaid by the ICA. As security for these outstanding debts, Encumbrance Inc. will retain a security interest in these mahogany elements. This interest will constitute an encumbrance on the future transaction of 12 Carlton House Terrace. An encumbrance is a right or interest in real property that does not prohibit its exchange but diminishes its value. The encumbrance will remain on 12 Carlton House Terrace as long as the mahogany elements are part of the building. As reparation, this encumbrance seeks to limit the property’s continued accumulation of value for the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate provides 75% of its revenue to the Treasury and 25% directly to the monarch.
Cameron Rowland
Encumbrance, 2020
Mortgage; mahogany double doors: 12 Carlton House Terrace, ground floor, front entrance
The property relation of the enslaved included and exceeded that of chattel and real estate. Plantation mortgages exemplify the ways in which the value of people who were enslaved, the land they were forced to labor on, and the houses they were forced to maintain were mutually constitutive. Richard Pares writes that “[mortgages] became commoner and commoner until, by 1800, almost every large plantation debt was a mortgage debt.” Slaves simultaneously functioned as collateral for the debts of their masters, while laboring intergenerationally under the debt of the master. The taxation of plantation products imported to Britain, as well as the taxation of interest paid to plantation lenders, provided revenue for Parliament and income for the monarch.
Mahogany became a valuable British import in the 18th century. It was used for a wide variety of architectural applications and furniture, characterizing Georgian and Regency styles. The timbers were felled and milled by slaves in Jamaica, Barbados, and Honduras among other British colonies. It is one of the few commodities of the triangular trade that continues to generate value for those who currently own it.
After taking the throne in 1820, George IV dismantled his residence, Carlton House, and the house of his parents, Buckingham House, combining elements from each to create Buckingham Palace. He built Carlton House Terrace between 1827 and 1832 on the former site of Carlton House as a series of elite rental properties to generate revenue for the Crown. All addresses at Carlton House Terrace are still owned by the Crown Estate, manager of land owned by the Crown since 1760.
12 Carlton House Terrace is leased to the Institute of Contemporary Arts. The building includes four mahogany doors and one mahogany handrail. These five mahogany elements were mortgaged by the Institute of Contemporary Arts to Encumbrance Inc. on January 16th, 2020 for £1000 each. These loans will not be repaid by the ICA. As security for these outstanding debts, Encumbrance Inc. will retain a security interest in these mahogany elements. This interest will constitute an encumbrance on the future transaction of 12 Carlton House Terrace. An encumbrance is a right or interest in real property that does not prohibit its exchange but diminishes its value. The encumbrance will remain on 12 Carlton House Terrace as long as the mahogany elements are part of the building. As reparation, this encumbrance seeks to limit the property’s continued accumulation of value for the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate provides 75% of its revenue to the Treasury and 25% directly to the monarch.
Cameron Rowland
3 & 4 Will IV c. 73, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2020
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Behavioral Intervention, 2020
Officer monitor for probation, parole, detention
Electronic monitoring is used to track people. In the U.S., it is often a condition of probation, parole, home detention, and release from immigration detention. It is described as an alternative to incarceration. It is legally termed “partial confinement.” Electronic monitoring imposes curfews stipulating when the person being monitored may and may not leave their home, and exclusion zones stipulating where they can and cannot go. Electronic monitoring in the U.S. rose 140% between 2005 and 2015. If the terms of electronic monitoring are violated, the person being monitored may be “fully confined” in prison.
The officer monitor manufactured by BI Incorporated is “a portable, handheld receiver that detects the presence of HomeGuard or TAD bracelets from several hundred feet away. It enables officers to conveniently monitor clients from outside a home, work, school, or any location.”1
1. BI Incorporated provides Behavioral Interventions® services. It is a GEO Group company.
Cameron Rowland
Behavioral Intervention, 2020
Officer monitor for probation, parole, detention
Electronic monitoring is used to track people. In the U.S., it is often a condition of probation, parole, home detention, and release from immigration detention. It is described as an alternative to incarceration. It is legally termed “partial confinement.” Electronic monitoring imposes curfews stipulating when the person being monitored may and may not leave their home, and exclusion zones stipulating where they can and cannot go. Electronic monitoring in the U.S. rose 140% between 2005 and 2015. If the terms of electronic monitoring are violated, the person being monitored may be “fully confined” in prison.
The officer monitor manufactured by BI Incorporated is “a portable, handheld receiver that detects the presence of HomeGuard or TAD bracelets from several hundred feet away. It enables officers to conveniently monitor clients from outside a home, work, school, or any location.”1
1. BI Incorporated provides Behavioral Interventions® services. It is a GEO Group company.
Cameron Rowland
Probation Order Under 18 U.S.C. § 3607, 2020
Form AO 246
28 ¾ × 13 ⅜ inches (73 × 34 cm)
In 2016, there were 3,789,800 people on probation in the United States. The U.S. federal government and 41 states charge people on probation flat or monthly monitoring fees and fines to pay for their own supervision. Federal supervision fines are imposed as a “criminal monetary penalty” in addition to restitution, assessments, interest, bail bond forfeitures, and court costs, to be paid as a condition of probation.
Cameron Rowland
Probation Order Under 18 U.S.C. § 3607, 2020
Form AO 246
28 ¾ × 13 ⅜ inches (73 × 34 cm)
In 2016, there were 3,789,800 people on probation in the United States. The U.S. federal government and 41 states charge people on probation flat or monthly monitoring fees and fines to pay for their own supervision. Federal supervision fines are imposed as a “criminal monetary penalty” in addition to restitution, assessments, interest, bail bond forfeitures, and court costs, to be paid as a condition of probation.
Cameron Rowland
Probation Order Under 18 U.S.C. § 3607, 2020
Form AO 246
28 ¾ × 13 ⅜ inches (73 × 34 cm)
In 2016, there were 3,789,800 people on probation in the United States. The U.S. federal government and 41 states charge people on probation flat or monthly monitoring fees and fines to pay for their own supervision. Federal supervision fines are imposed as a “criminal monetary penalty” in addition to restitution, assessments, interest, bail bond forfeitures, and court costs, to be paid as a condition of probation.
Cameron Rowland
Probation Order Under 18 U.S.C. § 3607, 2020
Form AO 246
28 ¾ × 13 ⅜ inches (73 × 34 cm)
In 2016, there were 3,789,800 people on probation in the United States. The U.S. federal government and 41 states charge people on probation flat or monthly monitoring fees and fines to pay for their own supervision. Federal supervision fines are imposed as a “criminal monetary penalty” in addition to restitution, assessments, interest, bail bond forfeitures, and court costs, to be paid as a condition of probation.
Cameron Rowland
Society, 2020
Cattle brands
90 × 13 × 11 cm (35 ⅜ × 5 ⅛ × 4 ⅜ inches)
Rental
Christopher Codrington was a Barbadian planter whose book collection formed the Codrington Library at Oxford. Codrington died in 1710, leaving his three plantations in Barbados to the Church of England. The Codrington plantations were operated by the Church to fund the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Enslaved people on the Codrington plantations were branded with the word “society.”
The word chattel was derived from “cattle” as the property relation of livestock was expanded to refer to all moveable property.
Cameron Rowland
2015 MOCA REAL ESTATE ACQUISITION, 2018
Donor plaque
The redlining map of Los Angeles drawn by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation in 1939 gave Bunker Hill, block D37, the lowest possible rating. D37 extended from West 4th Street to West Temple Street, and from Figueroa Street to South Hill Street. The report indicated that residents were “low-income level” and were predominantly “Mexicans and Orientals.” The HOLC’s Residential Security Map report for Bunker Hill states:
It has been through all the phases of decline and is now thoroughly blighted. Subversive racial elements predominate; dilapidation and squalor are everywhere in evidence. It is a slum area and one of the city’s melting pots. There is a slum clearance project under consideration but no definite steps have as yet been taken. It is assigned the lowest of “low red” grade.
The Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles was formed in 1948 under the California Community Redevelopment Act of 1945, in conjunction with the 1937 and 1949 federal Housing Acts, which authorized its “slum removal.” The CRA was granted powers of eminent domain to be used in the redevelopment of “blighted” areas. A primary purpose for the CRA’s redevelopment projects was to increase tax revenue for the city. One of the first redevelopment projects proposed by the CRA was in Bunker Hill, on the basis that the neighborhood spent more tax dollars on police, firefighting, and healthcare than it generated. A CRA pamphlet promoting the project stated, “Blight is a liability, Blight is malignant, Blight is a social peril.” The CRA’s “slum clearance” project in Bunker Hill was adopted in 1959. Through seizure and through sales under the threat of eminent domain, all 7,310 residential units were demolished and their residents were forcibly removed. The CRA’s slum clearance in Bunker Hill was one of the first redevelopment projects to rely on tax increment financing.
In 1980, the CRA issued a request for proposals for a project called California Plaza. Proposals were required to include an outdoor pedestrian plaza, a parking structure, and a modern art museum. The winning group of architects called themselves Bunker Hill Associates. The museum outlined in this proposal became The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 1983, the CRA offered MOCA a lease on the land located at 250 South Grand Avenue for a ninety-nine- year term at no rent.
In October 2015, the CRA sold the land at 250 South Grand Avenue to MOCA for $100,000. One month later, in November 2015, a tax assessment triggered by the sale recorded the value of the land at $8,500,000.
Cameron Rowland
2015 MOCA REAL ESTATE ACQUISITION, 2018
Donor plaque
The redlining map of Los Angeles drawn by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation in 1939 gave Bunker Hill, block D37, the lowest possible rating. D37 extended from West 4th Street to West Temple Street, and from Figueroa Street to South Hill Street. The report indicated that residents were “low-income level” and were predominantly “Mexicans and Orientals.” The HOLC’s Residential Security Map report for Bunker Hill states:
It has been through all the phases of decline and is now thoroughly blighted. Subversive racial elements predominate; dilapidation and squalor are everywhere in evidence. It is a slum area and one of the city’s melting pots. There is a slum clearance project under consideration but no definite steps have as yet been taken. It is assigned the lowest of “low red” grade.
The Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles was formed in 1948 under the California Community Redevelopment Act of 1945, in conjunction with the 1937 and 1949 federal Housing Acts, which authorized its “slum removal.” The CRA was granted powers of eminent domain to be used in the redevelopment of “blighted” areas. A primary purpose for the CRA’s redevelopment projects was to increase tax revenue for the city. One of the first redevelopment projects proposed by the CRA was in Bunker Hill, on the basis that the neighborhood spent more tax dollars on police, firefighting, and healthcare than it generated. A CRA pamphlet promoting the project stated, “Blight is a liability, Blight is malignant, Blight is a social peril.” The CRA’s “slum clearance” project in Bunker Hill was adopted in 1959. Through seizure and through sales under the threat of eminent domain, all 7,310 residential units were demolished and their residents were forcibly removed. The CRA’s slum clearance in Bunker Hill was one of the first redevelopment projects to rely on tax increment financing.
In 1980, the CRA issued a request for proposals for a project called California Plaza. Proposals were required to include an outdoor pedestrian plaza, a parking structure, and a modern art museum. The winning group of architects called themselves Bunker Hill Associates. The museum outlined in this proposal became The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 1983, the CRA offered MOCA a lease on the land located at 250 South Grand Avenue for a ninety-nine- year term at no rent.
In October 2015, the CRA sold the land at 250 South Grand Avenue to MOCA for $100,000. One month later, in November 2015, a tax assessment triggered by the sale recorded the value of the land at $8,500,000.
Cameron Rowland
D37, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2018
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Passport and Social Security Card, 2018
Unregistered IDs
2 3/16 x 3 7/16 and 2 3/16 x 3 7/16 inches (5.55 × 8.73 cm and 5.55 × 8.73 cm)
Unregistered citizenship documents are used to evade enforcement of “legal status.” These documents are illegal and operate in resistance to the exclusionary definitions of national citizenship. Citizenship documents that have not been issued by a national government disrupt the registration of citizenship.
42 USC § 1981, “Equal rights under the law,” last updated in 1991, maintains white citizenship as the standard for legal protection in current U.S. statute law:
(a) Statement of equal rights.
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
Cameron Rowland
Passport and Social Security Card, 2018
Unregistered IDs
2 3/16 x 3 7/16 and 2 3/16 x 3 7/16 inches (5.55 × 8.73 cm and 5.55 × 8.73 cm)
Unregistered citizenship documents are used to evade enforcement of “legal status.” These documents are illegal and operate in resistance to the exclusionary definitions of national citizenship. Citizenship documents that have not been issued by a national government disrupt the registration of citizenship.
42 USC § 1981, “Equal rights under the law,” last updated in 1991, maintains white citizenship as the standard for legal protection in current U.S. statute law:
(a) Statement of equal rights.
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
Cameron Rowland
Passport and Social Security Card, 2018
Unregistered IDs
2 3/16 x 3 7/16 and 2 3/16 x 3 7/16 inches (5.55 × 8.73 cm and 5.55 × 8.73 cm)
Unregistered citizenship documents are used to evade enforcement of “legal status.” These documents are illegal and operate in resistance to the exclusionary definitions of national citizenship. Citizenship documents that have not been issued by a national government disrupt the registration of citizenship.
42 USC § 1981, “Equal rights under the law,” last updated in 1991, maintains white citizenship as the standard for legal protection in current U.S. statute law:
(a) Statement of equal rights.
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
Cameron Rowland
Group of 8 Used Bikes – Item: 1284-018213, 2018
Group of 8 Used Bikes sold for $104
45 × 149 × 56 inches (114.30 × 378.46 × 142.24 cm)
Rental at cost
In the United States, property seized by the police is sold at police auction. Auction proceeds are used to fund the police.
Civil asset forfeiture originated in the English Navigation Act of 1660.1 The Navigation Acts were established to maintain the English monopoly on the triangular trade between England, West Africa, and the English colonies.2 As Eric Williams writes, “Negroes, the most important export of Africa, and sugar, the most important export of the West Indies, were the principal commodities enumerated by the Navigation Laws.”3 During the seventeenth century, the auction was standardized as a primary component of the triangle trade to sell slaves, goods produced by slaves, and eventually luxury goods. The auction remains widely used as a means to efficiently distribute goods for the best price.4
Police, ICE, and CBP may retain from 80% to 100% of the revenue generated from the auction of seized property.
Rental at cost: Artworks indicated as “Rental at cost” are not sold. Each of these artworks may be rented for 5 years for the total price realized at police auction.
1. Caleb Nelson, “The Constitutionality of Civil Forfeiture,” The Yale Law Journal 125, no. 8 (June 2016), https:// www.yalelawjournal.org/feature/the-constitutionality-of-civil-forfeiture.
2. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944), 56–57.
3. Williams, 57.
4. Brian Learmount, A History of the Auction (London: Barnard & Learmount, 1985), 30–31.
Cameron Rowland
Depreciation, 2018
Restrictive covenant; 1 acre on Edisto Island, South Carolina
40 acres and a mule as reparations for slavery originates in General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15, issued on January 16, 1865. Sherman’s Field Order 15 was issued out of concern for a potential uprising of the thousands of ex-slaves who were following his army by the time it arrived in Savannah.1
The field order stipulated that “The islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the Saint Johns River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States. Each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground.”2
This was followed by the formation of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in March 1865. In the months immediately following the issue of the field orders, approximately 40,000 former slaves settled in the area designated by Sherman on the basis of possessory title.3 10,000 of these former slaves were settled on Edisto Island, South Carolina.4
In 1866, following Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson effectively rescinded Field Order 15 by ordering these lands be returned to their previous Confederate owners.
Former slaves were given the option to work for their former masters as sharecroppers or be evicted. If evicted, former slaves could be arrested for homelessness under vagrancy clauses of the Black Codes. Those who refused to leave and refused to sign sharecrop contracts were threatened with arrest.
Although restoration of the land to the previous Confederate owners was slowed in some cases by court challenges filed by ex-slaves, nearly all the land settled was returned by the 1870s. As Eric Foner writes, “Johnson had in effect abrogated the Confiscation Act and unilaterally amended the law creating the [Freedmen’s] Bureau. The idea of a Freedmen’s Bureau actively promoting black landownership had come to an abrupt end.”5 The Freedmen’s Bureau agents became primary proponents of labor contracts inducting former slaves into the sharecropping system.6
Among the lands that were repossessed in 1866 by former Confederate owners was the Maxcy Place plantation. “A group of freed people were at Maxcy Place in January 1866…The people contracted to work for the proprietor, but no contract or list of names has been found.”7
The one-acre piece of land at 8060 Maxie Road, Edisto Island, South Carolina, was part of the Maxcy Place plantation. This land was purchased at market value on August 6, 2018, by 8060 Maxie Road, Inc., a nonprofit company formed for the sole purpose of buying this land and recording a restrictive covenant on its use. This covenant has as its explicit purpose the restriction of all development and use of the property by the owner.
The property is now appraised at $0. By rendering it legally unusable, this restrictive covenant eliminates the market value of the land. These restrictions run with the land, regardless of the owner. As such, they will last indefinitely.
As reparation, this covenant asks how land might exist outside of the legal-economic regime of property that was instituted by slavery and colonization. Rather than redistributing the property, the restriction imposed on 8060 Maxie Road’s status as valuable and transactable real estate asserts antagonism to the regime of property as a means of reparation.
1 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, updated ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1988; New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 71.
2 Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, Special Field Orders No. 15 (1865).
3 Foner, Reconstruction, 71.
4 Charles Spencer, Edisto Island 1861 to 2006: Ruin, Recovery and Rebirth (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2008), 87.
5 Foner, Reconstruction, 161.
6 Foner, 161.
7 Spencer, 95.
Cameron Rowland
Depreciation, 2018
Restrictive covenant; 1 acre on Edisto Island, South Carolina
40 acres and a mule as reparations for slavery originates in General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15, issued on January 16, 1865. Sherman’s Field Order 15 was issued out of concern for a potential uprising of the thousands of ex-slaves who were following his army by the time it arrived in Savannah.1
The field order stipulated that “The islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the Saint Johns River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States. Each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground.”2
This was followed by the formation of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in March 1865. In the months immediately following the issue of the field orders, approximately 40,000 former slaves settled in the area designated by Sherman on the basis of possessory title.3 10,000 of these former slaves were settled on Edisto Island, South Carolina.4
In 1866, following Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson effectively rescinded Field Order 15 by ordering these lands be returned to their previous Confederate owners.
Former slaves were given the option to work for their former masters as sharecroppers or be evicted. If evicted, former slaves could be arrested for homelessness under vagrancy clauses of the Black Codes. Those who refused to leave and refused to sign sharecrop contracts were threatened with arrest.
Although restoration of the land to the previous Confederate owners was slowed in some cases by court challenges filed by ex-slaves, nearly all the land settled was returned by the 1870s. As Eric Foner writes, “Johnson had in effect abrogated the Confiscation Act and unilaterally amended the law creating the [Freedmen’s] Bureau. The idea of a Freedmen’s Bureau actively promoting black landownership had come to an abrupt end.”5 The Freedmen’s Bureau agents became primary proponents of labor contracts inducting former slaves into the sharecropping system.6
Among the lands that were repossessed in 1866 by former Confederate owners was the Maxcy Place plantation. “A group of freed people were at Maxcy Place in January 1866…The people contracted to work for the proprietor, but no contract or list of names has been found.”7
The one-acre piece of land at 8060 Maxie Road, Edisto Island, South Carolina, was part of the Maxcy Place plantation. This land was purchased at market value on August 6, 2018, by 8060 Maxie Road, Inc., a nonprofit company formed for the sole purpose of buying this land and recording a restrictive covenant on its use. This covenant has as its explicit purpose the restriction of all development and use of the property by the owner.
The property is now appraised at $0. By rendering it legally unusable, this restrictive covenant eliminates the market value of the land. These restrictions run with the land, regardless of the owner. As such, they will last indefinitely.
As reparation, this covenant asks how land might exist outside of the legal-economic regime of property that was instituted by slavery and colonization. Rather than redistributing the property, the restriction imposed on 8060 Maxie Road’s status as valuable and transactable real estate asserts antagonism to the regime of property as a means of reparation.
1 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, updated ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1988; New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 71.
2 Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, Special Field Orders No. 15 (1865).
3 Foner, Reconstruction, 71.
4 Charles Spencer, Edisto Island 1861 to 2006: Ruin, Recovery and Rebirth (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2008), 87.
5 Foner, Reconstruction, 161.
6 Foner, 161.
7 Spencer, 95.
Cameron Rowland
Public Money, 2017
Institutional investment in Social Impact Bond
Social Impact Bonds marketize social services and their recipients. As instruments of austerity, they structure shortterm, privatized social services as investment opportunities to reduce government spending. Detailed information on Social Impact Bonds is limited to investors. As they are sold through private placement, investors must be invited to participate.
Using the institutional investment capacity of the Whitney Museum of American Art, a $25,000 investment has been made toward the Ventura County Project to Support Reentry, a Social Impact Bond in its fundraising stage. Investments made by the Whitney Museum support its operations, exhibitions, and collection. The Ventura County Project to Support Reentry will be evaluated at the end of its five-year period. When the non-disclosure agreement expires, information provided to the museum as an investor may be disclosed. Any earnings or losses will be retained or sustained by the Whitney Museum.
Social Impact Bonds are initiated between a government agency and a private intermediary organization. A Social Impact Bond contract, also referred to as a Pay for Success contract, sets “specific social outcomes” to be achieved in a determined time period.1 The intermediary organization selects a nonprofit service provider to design a program in pursuit of those outcomes. The intermediary then works to raise capital for the program by issuing either debt or equity to private investors. At the end of the period, a third-party evaluator determines the success of the program. If the “social outcomes” are achieved, the government repays the investors the principal as well as a return on investment proportional to the presumed public savings. If the outcomes are not achieved, the investors are not repaid.2
Social Impact Bonds reorient the focus of social services as they “transfer the financial risk of prevention programs to private investors based on the expectation of future recoverable savings. They also provide the incentive for multiple government agencies to work together, capturing savings across agencies to fund investor repayment.”3 The first Social Impact Bond was realized in 2010 in Peterborough, UK, and was designed to reduce recidivism at HM Prison in Peterborough.4 The first Social Impact Bond in the United States was realized in New York City in 2012 and was intended to reduce recidivism of 16–18 year olds at Rikers Island Jail.5 Since 2010, numerous Social Impact Bonds have been initiated throughout the United States, the UK, and Europe to fund temporary programs to reduce dependency on the state by reducing recidivism, reducing homelessness, reducing the number of children in foster care, and increasing workforce development.6
On June 21, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives passed The Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act, sponsored by former Republican Representative Todd Young of Indiana. The Act would provide federal support and oversight to incentivize the implementation of Social Impact Bonds as part of “Social Impact Partnership Projects.” Under the Act, a Social Impact Partnership Project “must produce one or more measurable, clearly defined outcomes that result in social benefit and Federal savings.”7
In 2011, the Supreme Court ordered the State of California to reduce prison overcrowding.8 To comply with this order without directly reducing the total number of people incarcerated, the State of California passed the 2011 Public Safety Realignment Act. Under the Realignment laws, “newly-convicted low-level offenders without current or prior serious or violent offenses stay in county jail to serve their sentence.”9 The law shifted the distribution of these would-be state prisoners to county jails, many of which had already been operating at or above capacity.10 In 2014, California passed Assembly Bill 1837 enacting the Social Innovation Financing Program to reduce recidivism at the county level by funding outcome payments for Social Impact Bonds.11
Since 2012, grand jury reports have indicated overcrowding at jails throughout Ventura County resulting from Realignment.12 In 2015, Ventura County partnered with Social Finance, Inc., as an intermediary and Interface Children and Family Services as a service provider to initiate a Social Impact Bond to reduce recidivism. The Ventura County Project to Support Reentry will focus on the use of Moral Reconation Therapy® (MRT), a “cognitive-behavioral treatment system that leads to enhanced moral reasoning, better decision making, and more appropriate behavior.”13 The founders of MRT claim it has been used in a wide range of correctional settings “[b]ecause of its remarkable success (notably with minority participants) . . . MRT research shows that participation and program completion by minority groups can significantly lower recidivism rates.”14 The Ventura County Project to Support Reentry will use MRT to treat “criminogenic thinking” defined as “antisocial attitudes, values, and beliefs.”15 The Ventura County Project to Support Reentry will make outcome payments to investors based on individual avoided arrests (as compared with a control group), and individual “clean quarters” or full quarters without arrest.16 The focus on recidivism to reduce overcrowding in California’s county jails emphasizes the personal responsibility of prisoners for their arrests, rather than changing policy to reduce arrests, convictions, or sentences.17
1 Investing in What Works: “Pay for Success” in New York State Increasing Employment and Improving Public Safety (Albany: New York State Division of the Budget, 2014), 1.
2 Jeffrey Liebman and Alina Sellman, Social Impact Bonds: A Guide for State and Local Governments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School Social Impact Bond Technical Assistance Lab, 2013), 8.
3 A New Tool for Scaling Impact: How Social Impact Bonds Can Mobilize Private Capital to Advance Social Good (Boston: Social Finance, 2012), 5.
4 Emma Disley and Jennifer Rubin, Phase 2 Report from the Payment by Results Social Impact Bond Pilot at HMP Peterborough (London, UK: Ministry of Justice, 2014), 1.
5 The NYC ABLE Project for Incarcerated Youth: America’s First Social Impact Bond (New York: City of New York Office of the Mayor, 2012), 1.
6 “Social Impact Bonds and Development Impact Bonds Worldwide,” Instiglio, accessed November 10, 2016. http://www.instiglio.org/en/sibsworldwide/.
7 Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act, H.R. 5170, 114th Cong. § 2(c)(2)(B) (2016).
8 In 2001, the class action lawsuit Plata v. Brown was filed on the basis of inadequate state prison medical services in California that violated the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. First Amended Complaint Class Action at 2, Plata v. Brown, (N.D. Cal. Aug. 1, 2001) (No. C-01-1351 TEH); Brown v. Plata 563, U.S. 1, 1-3 (2011).
9 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2011 Public Safety Realignment, accessed February 20, 2017, http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/realignment/docs/realignment-fact-sheet.pdf.
10 Public Policy Institute of California, Evaluating the Effects of California’s Corrections Realignment on Public Safety, August 2012, accessed February 20, 2017, http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_812MLR.pdf.
11 A.B. 1837, 2013-2014 Leg., Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2014).
12 Ventura County Grand Jury, 2012-2013 Detention Facilities Inspections, accessed February 20, 2017, http://vcportal.ventura.org/GDJ/docs/reports/2012-13/Jail_Inspection-Final.pdf; Ventura County Grand Jury, 2013-2014 Detention Facilities Inspections, accessed February 20, 2017, http://vcportal.ventura.org/GDJ/docs/reports/2013-14/Detention_Facilities_Inspections-06.16.14.pdf; Ventura County Grand Jury, 2014-2015 Detention Facilities Inspections, accessed February 20, 2017, http://vcportal.ventura.org/GDJ/docs/reports/2014-15/Detention_Facilities-06.01.15.pdf; Ventura County Grand Jury, 2015-2016 Detention Facilities Inspections, accessed February 20, 2017, http://vcportal.ventura.org/GDJ/docs/reports/201516/Annual_Detention_Facilities_and_Law_Enforcement_Issues-05.24.16.pdf.
13 “About MRT,” Moral Reconation Therapy, accessed February 20, 2017, http://www.moral-reconation-therapy.com/aboutmrt.html.
14 Ibid.
15 Ventura County Project to Support Reentry PFS Main Agreement (Boston: Social Finance, 2017), 51.
16 Avoided arrests for each cohort repay a value of “$32,000 per avoided Arrest, up to a 5% relative reduction in the Total Re-arrest Outcome between the Service Group and the Control Group. $4,500 per avoided Arrest, above a 5% relative reduction in the Total Re-arrest Outcome between the Service Group and the Control Group.” Clean quarters repay a value of “$640 for each Individual Clean Quarters Outcome. The aggregate Total Clean Quarters Outcome Payments for all Enrolled Service Group Members will be capped at $750,000.” Ventura County Project to Support Reentry PFS Main Agreement (Boston: Social Finance, 2017), 112.
17 Since 2009, the State of California has convicted less than 70% of all Adult Felony Arrests. California Department of Justice, Crime in California 2015, accessed February 20, 2017, https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/cjsc/publications/candd/cd15/cd15.pdf.
Cameron Rowland
Birmingham, Galerie Buchholz, Cologne, Germany, 2017
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Norfolk Southern (Tennessee), 2017
Steel relay rail
7 ⅛ × 192 ½ × 28 ¾ inches (18 × 489 × 73 cm)
Relay rail is rail that has been removed from its original line and resold. Relay rail was first sold by railroad companies to mining companies for pit railways. Steel rail is made using coal and iron ore.
In the late 1860s, the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad; the Georgia and Alabama Railroad; the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad; and the Macon and Brunswick Railroad were constructed using convict lease labor. By 1895 all of these lines had been consolidated into Southern Railway, which built hubs in Birmingham, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, allowing it to transport coal and iron ore throughout the Southeast. In 1982, Southern Railway merged with Norfolk and Western Railway to create Norfolk Southern. This Norfolk Southern relay rail was used in the Tennessee section of the system.
Cameron Rowland
Jim Crow, 2017
Jim Crow rail bender
36 × 7 ⅞ × 17 ⅜ inches (91.4 × 20 × 44 cm)
Rental
Jim Crow is a racial slur, derived from the name of the minstrel character played by Thomas D. Rice in the 1830s. A Jim Crow is also a type of manual railroad rail bender. It has been referred to by this name in publications from 1870 to the present. The lease of ex-slave prisoners to private industry immediately following the Civil War is known as the convict lease system. Many of the first convict lease contracts were signed by railroad companies. Plessy v. Ferguson contested an 1890 Louisiana law segregating black railroad passengers. The Supreme Court upheld the law as constitutional. This created a precedent for laws mandating racial segregation, later to be known as Jim Crow laws.
Cameron Rowland
RWE, 2017
Electrical power
Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk AG was founded in 1898 in Essen as a coal power company. In 1900 the leading coal producers were the U.S., the UK, and Germany. Germany has remained the leading coal producer in Europe. As of 2016, RWE was the largest electricity supplier in Germany, providing 23% of the country’s electrical power. In 2016, 44% of the company’s energy supply was derived from coal. Its four most productive plants are coal-powered, and are located in the Nordrhein-Westfalen region. The company operates 3 coal mines, which are located in the same region. The electrical power provider at Galerie Buchholz on Neven-DuMont-Str. has been changed, and the power will be supplied by RWE for one year.
Cameron Rowland
Rue Ravenstein 32, Etablissement d’en face, Brussels 2017
Installation view
Ground floor
Cameron Rowland
Rue Ravenstein 32, 2017
Lease subsidy
Assicurazioni Generali was one of the first insurance companies to offer all types of insurance. Generali was established in 1831 in Trieste, the primary trading port and shipbuilding center of the Austrian Empire. Trieste was instituted as a free port status in 1719. This status was suspended during the Napoleonic Wars and resumed in 1813, when the city was returned to the Austrian Empire. Following this, a number of marine insurance companies were initiated to compete with those of England. Expanding on the primacy of marine insurance, which had been developed by Lloyd’s of London, Generali was founded to provide marine insurance, flood insurance, fire insurance, life insurance, “and whatever other area of insurance permitted by law” as stipulated in its original charter. Generali also pioneered cross-border insurance, beginning with its dual headquarters in Trieste and Venice and quickly establishing branch offices in Vienna, Prague, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Munich, Hamburg, Königsberg, Genoa, Naples, and Milan. According to the company’s archivists, it is unknown whether Generali insured slave ships. In 2010, Generali was the second largest insurance group in the world.
Generali Belgium was established in 1901. Generali completed its first building in Belgium in 1936. It was designed by architects Alexis Dumont and Marcel Van Goethem, both of whom designed numerous monumental style buildings throughout the Mont des Arts. The Mont des Arts was initiated by Leopold II at the end of the 19th century as a redevelopment of the area adjacent to the Royal Palace. It includes the Royal Library of Belgium, the National Archives of Belgium, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, and the Palais des Beaux-Arts. When Etablissement d’en face relocated to Rue Ravenstein 32 in 2012, the organization negotiated for a discounted rent in this building.
Cameron Rowland
Rue Ravenstein 32, 2017
Lease subsidy
Assicurazioni Generali was one of the first insurance companies to offer all types of insurance. Generali was established in 1831 in Trieste, the primary trading port and shipbuilding center of the Austrian Empire. Trieste was instituted as a free port status in 1719. This status was suspended during the Napoleonic Wars and resumed in 1813, when the city was returned to the Austrian Empire. Following this, a number of marine insurance companies were initiated to compete with those of England. Expanding on the primacy of marine insurance, which had been developed by Lloyd’s of London, Generali was founded to provide marine insurance, flood insurance, fire insurance, life insurance, “and whatever other area of insurance permitted by law” as stipulated in its original charter. Generali also pioneered cross-border insurance, beginning with its dual headquarters in Trieste and Venice and quickly establishing branch offices in Vienna, Prague, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Munich, Hamburg, Königsberg, Genoa, Naples, and Milan. According to the company’s archivists, it is unknown whether Generali insured slave ships. In 2010, Generali was the second largest insurance group in the world.
Generali Belgium was established in 1901. Generali completed its first building in Belgium in 1936. It was designed by architects Alexis Dumont and Marcel Van Goethem, both of whom designed numerous monumental style buildings throughout the Mont des Arts. The Mont des Arts was initiated by Leopold II at the end of the 19th century as a redevelopment of the area adjacent to the Royal Palace. It includes the Royal Library of Belgium, the National Archives of Belgium, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, and the Palais des Beaux-Arts. When Etablissement d’en face relocated to Rue Ravenstein 32 in 2012, the organization negotiated for a discounted rent in this building.
Cameron Rowland
Rue Ravenstein 32, Etablissement d’en face, Brussels 2017
Installation view
Lower level
Cameron Rowland
The Hold, 2017
Container foundations, twistlocks, Lloyd’s Register certificates
238 ½ × 103.15 inches (605.79 × 262.00 cm)
Lloyd’s of London monopolized the marine insurance of the slave trade by the early 18th century. Lloyd’s Register was established in 1760 as the first classification society in order to provide insurance underwriters information on the quality of vessels. The classification of the ship allows for a more accurate assessment of its risk. Lloyd’s Register and other classification societies continue to survey and certify shipping vessels and their equipment. Twistlocks physically secure goods in the hold, locking them to the hull and to each other. The certification of lashing equipment is established to insure the value of the goods regardless of their potential loss.
Cameron Rowland
Rue Ravenstein 32, Etablissement d’en face, Brussels 2017
Installation view
Lower level
Cameron Rowland
The Hold, 2017
Container foundations, twistlocks, Lloyd’s Register certificates
238 ½ × 103.15 inches (605.79 × 262.00 cm)
Lloyd’s of London monopolized the marine insurance of the slave trade by the early 18th century. Lloyd’s Register was established in 1760 as the first classification society in order to provide insurance underwriters information on the quality of vessels. The classification of the ship allows for a more accurate assessment of its risk. Lloyd’s Register and other classification societies continue to survey and certify shipping vessels and their equipment. Twistlocks physically secure goods in the hold, locking them to the hull and to each other. The certification of lashing equipment is established to insure the value of the goods regardless of their potential loss.
Cameron Rowland
Korakukan Tenjin Water Test, 2016
Water, lead test
The Korakukan Tenjin Public School was relocated in 2012. Since then the former school building at 9-24 Tenjin-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama-shi has been used to store emergency supplies, but much of it remains unused. The city of Okayama has allowed this building to be used as a site for the 2016 Okayama Art Summit.
The drinking water in the building has been tested for lead by National Testing Laboratories in the United States. The EPA action level for drinking water in the U.S. is .015 mg/L.
Development: Okayama Art Summit 2016, Korakukan Tenjin Public School, Okayama, Japan, 2016
Installation view
Cameron Rowland
Korakukan Tenjin Water Test, 2016
Water, lead test
The Korakukan Tenjin Public School was relocated in 2012. Since then the former school building at 9-24 Tenjin-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama-shi has been used to store emergency supplies, but much of it remains unused. The city of Okayama has allowed this building to be used as a site for the 2016 Okayama Art Summit.
The drinking water in the building has been tested for lead by National Testing Laboratories in the United States. The EPA action level for drinking water in the U.S. is .015 mg/L.
Development: Okayama Art Summit 2016, Korakukan Tenjin Public School, Okayama, Japan, 2016
Installation view
Exhibitions:
Cameron Rowland
Amt 45 i
Solo Exhibition
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany
February 10 – October 15, 2023
— Art Magazin
— Contemporary And
— Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
— Frankfurter Neue Presse
— Frankfurter Rundschau
— Monopol
— Untapped Journal
— Texte zur Kunst
Cameron Rowland
Deputies
May 1 - June 19, 2021
— Pamphlet Download (screen reader compatible)
— Life and Property
— Art Agenda
— Artforum
— New York Times
— Art in America
Cameron Rowland
3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73
Solo Exhibition
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
January 28 – December 9, 2020
— Artforum
— Art Monthly
— Texte zur Kunst
— Frieze
— Art Review
— White Pube
— Strand
— This is Tomorrow
— Arts of the Working Class
— Third Text
Cameron Rowland
D37
Solo Exhibition
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California
October 14, 2018 – June 24, 2019
— LA Times
— Avery Review
— New York Times
Elsewhere:
2024
2023
2022
Cameron Rowland
Scenes of Subjection
By Saidiya Hartman
W. W. Norton
2022
— BOMB
— Columbia University Book Release
Cameron Rowland
Park McArthur
Carolyn Lazard
“After Institutions, The Art of Critique”
By Remco Torenbosch
Metropolis M
October/November 2022
— English Translation
Cameron Rowland
A Barganha
coleção moraes-barbosa, Sao Paulo, Brazil
September 24 – November 5, 2022
Carolyn Lazard
Cameron Rowland
Site Visit
Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany
March 8 – April 3, 2022
2021
Cameron Rowland
Information (Today)
Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland
June 25 – October 10, 2021
— Exhibition Text
2020
2019
Cameron Rowland
Museum
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany
August 17, 2019 – February 16, 2020