Ila Sahai Prouty Receives Massachusetts Humanities Grant for “Vessels of Slavery” Exhibition
Ila Sahai Prouty’s project Vessels of Slavery received a Massachusetts Humanities Story Forward Grant (20K) to exhibit the project at the Lynn Museum in Massachusetts in Spring of 2026.
“Vessels of Slavery: Forget Me Not” is a traveling exhibition of interpreted archival materials around the history of enslaved people in Essex County, Massachusetts.
Based on a collaborative public history project originally conducted from 2022 –2024 by Ila Sahai Prouty, Christle Rawlins-Jackson and Susi Ryan, six sails tell the stories of enslaved and freed people through various lenses.The project is designed to create ongoing and expanding opportunities for people in Essex County, specifically Gloucester and Lynn, to face and process the lives of enslaved people in the area and the local impact of the history of slavery.
Prouty, Rawlins-Jackson, Ryan, and Miranda Aisling, project manager, will present “Vessels of Slavery: Forget Me Not —Using Public Art to Interpret the History of Slavery” at the New England Museum Association conference on November 6th.
