For the documentary Boil That Cabbage Down, I recreated the visual world of The Old Plantation, one of the earliest known depictions of the banjo in American history. The project centres on reclaiming the instrument’s Black cultural origins, requiring a translation of the painting into two distinct visual registers: celebratory field scenes rooted in communal life, and intentionally unsettling minstrel show sequences that interrogate performance and appropriation. Through costume, I balanced historical research with critical interpretation, using dress as a narrative tool to explore cultural memory, identity, and the politics of representation.
