The African Odyssey Exhibition

This exhibition is only open Thursdays-Sundays each week. It is closed on Mondays-Wednesdays Montpelier is honored to present, in collaboration with the Braxton Institute, Dr. Joanne Braxton’s moving photography of her odyssey to Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Senegal. The exhibit explores an unexpected, very personal story and an encounter with ancestral memory. As a descendant of African people enslaved at Montpelier, she hopes that you will see and feel some of what she saw and felt as she journeyed to discover the meaning of the words of her grandmother, Emma Harrison, “My father always said that we have a home over there.” Through her photography, she honors her enslaved great-grandfather, William Harrison, and “diasporic Africans, unwilling immigrants to the Chesapeake in the 17th and 18th centuries.” This exhibition is produced in collaboration with the Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resiliency and Joy.