In this body of work, I imagine a school that history never recorded but should have: the Clockwork Academy for Girls, founded in 1888 at the height of the Industrial Revolution. I conceived the Academy as a sanctuary for young Black women, protégées of Benjamin Banneker, who applied their intellect and creativity to the sciences, the arts, and the mechanics of time itself.

My work explores a forgotten past never included in the history books of America. Through collage, I cut and assemble fragments of paper gathered from across the world, echoing the resourcefulness of the students I depict as they build telescopes from scraps, chart new maps, and design machines that challenge the order of their age.

I am invested in illuminating the presence of unsung artisans of the nineteenth century: botanists, couturiers, inventors, and craftsmen whose contributions were overlooked. Clockwork Academy seeks to make these possibilities visible, to reimagine our place at the center of invention and imagination, where history too often consigned us to the margins.