Venus of Ossabaw

Venus of Ossabaw (18:06 min) is a new short film commissioned by Telfair Museums for Off the Coast of Paradise: Artists and Ossabaw Island, 1961–Now. On view during museum hours in the exhibition gallery, Telfair Museums offers a special public viewing of the film evening from 7:30–8:00pm through June 21. This shorter, atmospheric edition will be projected on the façade of the Jepson Center above the entrance each night. This version of the film, which does not include sound, was developed by Hamilton as a way to bring Georgia’s coastal landscape into the surroundings of downtown Savannah for all to enjoy.

Venus of Ossabaw is a wilderness narrative set in the late 18th century that follows a teenage girl named Venus as she escapes captivity on Ossabaw, journeying through the treacherous terrain of South Georgia toward St. Augustine in Spanish East Florida. Filmed primarily on Ossabaw in November 2025, Allison Janae Hamilton’s film foregrounds the natural environment of Georgia’s coastline, both treacherous and healing, as a central character.

Exploring the history of marronage (the formation of remote communities by those escaping enslavement), the film takes inspiration from the life of Titus, an enslaved man who fled Ossabaw in the late 1700s and built community with others who had self-emancipated. Hamilton consulted recent scholarship by Dr. Paul Pressly, who documented what is known about Titus’s life in his book A Southern Underground Railroad: Black Georgians and the Promise of Spanish Florida and Indian Country (The University of Georgia Press, 2024).

Drawing on her personal background, both Hamilton’s art and film practices have long been defined by a deep connection to and engagement with the landscapes of the American South as a living archive of stories. Hamilton states that the film is “a way to honor those who fled, those who stayed, and those who continue forging life and resistance while the land continues to bear witness and remember.”

Produced by First Team Films. Projection facilitated by the Trinity United Methodist Church and Kaufman-Heinz.