Deaon Griffin-Pressley AKA (artistically known as) “SLAVERY” is a multidisciplinary artist whose work reclaims, reimagines, and heals the story of cotton. Trained in theater and celebrated as an actor, SLAVERY’s artistic journey began in a patch of earth outside a childhood home in Florida, where his father instilled the importance of history and transformation by planting a cotton seed. That act, and the experiential connection to nature, sparked a lifelong passion for weaving memory, culture, and creativity into everything SLAVERY touches.

His mission is rooted in personal resilience and a sense of divine guidance—from street vending in Paris, where he befriended strangers and thrived against the odds, to bringing hands-on cotton experiences to children and adults throughout the United States and beyond. Through art, storytelling, and education, SLAVERY’s cotton jewelry and workshops challenge stigma, empower children and families, and create space for “confrontational-healing” with an ancestor-plant at the very center of African-American history.