Growing cotton
There were many different kinds of plantations across the south, but the most common crops grown were indigo, rice, and cotton. Growing cotton requires a high level of skill and knowledge of the plant and land. It was essential to be in a warm climate and wet soil. The process of growing a cotton plant occurs over 4-5 months with a high level of attention and care required at every point.
In a comprehensive study about the impacts of cotton on the environment, Vitale et al find that cotton's life cycle (from being grown in the earth, made into clothes, and then discarded) causes great "environmental degradation." In the growth process, they cite the high amount of water used alongside pesticides as reasons why cotton is harmful. Beyond cotton's growth, they identify many different reasons why cotton impacts the environment from manufactuing processes to washing/drying of clothes. When viewed this way, many things would be seen as overall harmful for the environment, but this article's important contribution is in its depth and detail in which it examines how global systems function together to support the production and manufacturing of a single plant into textiles and garments.
When it came time for me to grow my cotton, I relied on pictures of the plant. Also, I reflected on stories of enslavement I had read where the people forced to pick it ended up with cuts on their hands, to the point where their hands hardened to endure the hostility of the plant. I envisioned a cotton plant that was hostile, it had small thorns and spikes. This cotton plant was going to be entirely composed of clay besides the fiberous part which was going to made of cotton string and yarn that I frogged from another project. Though I saw the plant as hostile, I wanted to strip some of its hostility away. Cotton is a plant that played a large role in the oppression of Black people and is tied so closely to slavery, but it is also a plant. Within my cotton plant, I wanted to infuse a bit of fantasy. It has a hard exterior and surface, I decided to carve lines into it like a hard spiky branch, but I made it curve and bend and its root curves into a spiral (also a physical representation of this project’s view of time) This representation of cotton adds to the story of the plant. It isn’t just a site of oppression, it’s also a site of joy where the descendants of enslaved people can use its fibers to make things.