"Black Menagerie (Sasha Mae)" combines the image of Sasha Mae Eccleston’s hands and eyes with symbols of metamorphosis, butterflies and geodes, alongside shells and starfish. Taken as a whole, the tondo presents a portrait of the sitter across time and space from the Black Mediterranean to the Black Atlantic. Skipping across decades and continents, the work alludes to the complexity and depth of the individual.

The hands of Eccleston, a fellow 2022 Resident of the American Academy in Rome, are featured in the tondos "Black Menagerie (Sasha Mae)" and "Black Menagerie (Khepri & Janus)." During their residency, Villalongo and Eccleston carried on a weighty discourse and investigation into Blackness and antiquity. As an Assistant Professor of Classics at Brown University, she is interested in the culture of the Roman Empire and how that culture has functioned in the British Empire, in postcolonial lands, and as part of the United States' imperial ambitions. These discussions became a source of inspiration for Villalongo and influenced the construction of this series, "Black Menagerie."