John E. Dowell: Pathways to Freedom

In 2011, John E. Dowell dreamt of his grandmother, which inspired him to photograph the seminal cotton plant. The dream spawned a personal response to his ancestral legacy, from documenting the beauty of cotton itself to reflecting on the horrors of slavery that made cotton “king.” In the exhibition Pathways to Freedom, Dowell uses his series to place the viewer into the cotton fields, employing digital editing techniques to “conjure the spirits of the dead rising from out of the cotton field.”

Dowell’s concept creates what he calls “ghost cotton” to protect people. While looking at a field of cotton, he feels as if he is not alone, and he hears a voice speak to him, “would you have had the courage, the strength, the wisdom to break for freedom?” The auditory apparition triggered a desire and a need to photograph cotton at night, as enslaved people rarely attempted to escape in daylight. To Dowell, photography is a means of illustrating what manifests beyond his sight, including imaginings and visions that can only be felt in the dark.