Slave Rebellion Reenactment is a community-engaged artist performance and film production that, on November 8-9, 2019, reimagined the German Coast Uprising of 1811, which took place in the river parishes just outside of New Orleans. Envisioned and organized by artist Dread Scott and documented by filmmaker John Akomfrah, Slave Rebellion Reenactment (SRR) animated a suppressed history of people with an audacious plan to organize and seize Orleans Territory, to fight not just for their own emancipation, but to end slavery. It is a project about freedom.

The artwork involved hundreds of reenactors in period specific clothing marching for two days covering 26 miles. The reenactment, the culmination of a period of organizing and preparation, took place upriver from New Orleans in the locations where the 1811 revolt occurred – with the exurban communities and industry that have replaced the sugar plantations as its backdrop. The reenactment was an impressive and startling sight—hundreds of Black re-enactors, many on horses, flags flying, in 19th-century French colonial garments, singing in Creole and English to African drumming.

The reenactment concluded in Congo Square, a location instrumental for preserving African culture in America, with a celebration—transforming the violent suppression of the freedom fighters into a celebration of their achievement. Slave Rebellion Reenactment continued the original rebels’ vision of emancipation that was embodied throughout the performance and opened the possibility for participants and audience members to imagine freedom.

To engage a variety of audiences, the project had multiple identities: the reenactment itself, a multichannel film installation of documentation from the event and the recruitment meetings, and documentary photos.