Brazil was the last country of the American continent to formally abolish slavery. That imparts rare historical value to Marc Ferrez’s 1882 photographs of slaves working on a coffee farm in the Paraíba Valley, in São Paulo. The artist uses those photos to create an allegorical staging of the tension between the enslaved, eager to break free, and the enslaver, who tries to prevent the imminent liberation. The performance is part of Modisakeng’s extensive research on instituted slavery in various societies around the world, especially on the exploitation of black bodies in the development of modern economies.