To confront the legacy of slavery in America, photographer C. Rose Smith paid a visit to its lasting physical reminders. In a series of black-and-white self-portraits, the photographer rests inside the majestic historic homes built hundreds of years ago by enslaved people. She lounges on a settee at the Nottoway Plantation, the largest plantation in the South; stands barefoot in the parlor of the Belmont Mansion, the Nashville estate of the wealthy slave trader Adelicia Acklen; and sits on a bench outside the carefully preserved Charleston home of the Confederate lieutenant Joseph Aiken. Smith wears a white cotton shirt in all the images. It symbolizes the abuses of cotton farming and the racist valuation of whiteness. Smith stares directly at the viewer, demanding visibility against the backdrop of America’s darkest history. —Paulina Prosnitz