For just a moment, imagine yourself in the place of a slave held captive on a plantation in the rural south before the Civil War.

What would life be like?

How would it feel?

Photographer Titus Heagins explores these questions with his photography exhibit, Plantation Lullaby, now on display at N.C. Central University’s Art Museum.

The photographs reconstruct slave life on a plantation using models.

“The scale of this concept is unprecedented,” said Kenneth Rodgers, director of the art museum.

“He had to gain special permission to shoot these reconstructed photos on the grounds of plantations that have historical value,” said Rodgers. “Its authenticity lends a dimension that is larger than life —it’s very extraordinary work.”

Heagins said he was driven to do Plantation Lullaby by his experience with racism growing up in Texas during the Civil Rights movement.

“I witnessed my first lynching when I was just five years old,” he nonchalantly told an arts and humanities class at his exhibit last Wednesday.

“I’m affected by the implications of dealing in a racist society, so I feel it is my obligation as a photographer to bring some understanding to the issues of racism in America.”

Plantation Lullaby is accompanied by poems from Heagins’ close friend Jackie Shelton Green. Heagins used everyday people, like college students and family members, to stage the reconstruction of slave life.

Heagins told students that plantation life was “a negotiation between slave and master.”

The images range from shocking photos like an in-your-face reconstruction of a lynching entitled, “Run No More,” to a peaceful composition named “Soloman Justice” that shows a slave holding a lily while standing in a creek.

“All of them were straight to the point,” says freshman Shannon Everett. “It basically shows you how slavery was back then.”

Sophomore Martina May pointed to the photograph “Missus’ Eggs,” and said “the look on her face is realistic, like she’s in a depressed state.”

Heagins’ said his passion for photography expanded in 1997 after a trip to Cuba.

He said Fidel Castro’s teachings of “freedom, equality and fair play” made him interested in Cuba.

He said race is not as big an issue in Cuba as it is in the United States. “There were light Cuban’s and dark Cubans,” Heagins says, “but it was like nobody noticed but me.”

He has also photographed Cuban family life and African American cemeteries.

He says his work has a purpose beyhond aesthetic value. It is, he says, “a sociopolitical commentary about race.”

Planation Lullaby will remain at the Art Museum through October 21. There is no charge to see the exhibit.