Revealing Histories, Dialogising Collections: Museums and Galleries in North West England Commemorating the Abolition of the Slave Trade
2009; Frank Cass & Co.; Volume: 30; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01440390902819011
ISSN1743-9523
Autores Tópico(s)African history and culture studies
ResumoAbstract This article discusses exhibitions at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester and in museums in Lancaster that responded to the commemoration of the bicentenary of the ending of the slave trade in Britain in 1807. It argues, using Bakhtin's idea of dialogism, that these institutions used their own collections as the starting point for radical interventions that sought to complicate traditional historical narratives. Both featured the work of contemporary artists including Godfried Donkor, Lubaina Himid and Sue Flowers as key elements in the dialogisation. The article examines the curatorial decisions of the teams involved in the exhibitions and contextualises them for both their historical and contemporary significance. Acknowledgments This work was completed during an AHRC funded research leave. A version of this article first appeared in the exhibition catalogue for the Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. I want to particularly thank the Director Maria Balshaw and the Curator David Morris for their unstinting support for the project. I have presented this work in Bremen, Newcastle, York, Leiden, Leeds and Salford and want to thank audiences there for their engagement with, and useful comments on, the ideas presented herein. My co-curators Kevin Dalton Johnson, Suandi and Emma Poulter were enthusiastic and learned compatriots. Emma in particular was instrumental in developing some ideas jointly with me, particularly around the Thomas Hearne watercolours and Olaudah Equiano. For the work in Lancaster, I had great support from the project director, Susan Ashworth, the artist Sue Flowers and the historian Melinda Elder. My greatest debt though is to Lubaina Himid who not only provides the amazing work, but also the academic collegiality in which I am to thrive. Notes Bennett, 'Exhibition, Difference and the Logic of Culture', 63. Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (Co-Curators: Alan Rice, Emma Poulter, SuAndi, Kevin Dalton Johnson), 16 June 2007–27 April 2008; ABOLISHED? Lancashire Museums Marking 200 Years of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (Project Director: Susan Ashworth), Judges' Lodgings and Lancaster Maritime Museum, July–October 2007. Thomas Hearne (1744–1817), 'View of St Christopher's: The Salt Pond, part of St Christopher's and Nevis from the Shore at Basseterre', 1775–1776, watercolour and bodycolour over pen and ink on two joined sheets of laid paper, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Thomas Hearne (1744–1817), 'The Island of Montserrat from the Road before the Town', 1775–1776, watercolour and bodycolour over pen and ink on two joined sheets of laid paper, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Carretta, 'Olaudah Equiano?' Quoted in Carretta, Unchained Voices, 223–224. Jeffrey Ruggles' wonderful study The Unboxing of Henry Brown Citation(2003) outlines much of the fantastical story of Brown. However, there are still surprises about his British sojourn being uncovered (see Chater, 'From Slavery to Show Business'). See Richard Newman's introduction to the Citation2002 reprint of Brown's narrative. The curators were able to borrow an original copy of this book from the John Rylands Library in Manchester (where, until the search undertaken following our inquiry, it had been labelled 'missing'), enabling a display of this text in its hometown for the first time in living memory. Kathy Chater's discovery of census evidence that proves the longevity of his stay in Manchester (and elsewhere in Britain) is only slowly filtering through to the wider academic community. Her article makes Brown's entry in the 2007 Oxford Companion to Black British History decidedly arcane (Chater, 'From Slavery to Show Business'). Rice and Crawford, Liberating Sojourn. Both the pro-abolition and the anti-abolition petitions had pride of place in the exhibition at Westminster Hall. Full transcripts can be viewed online at: http://slavetrade.parliament.uk/slavetrade/assetviews/documents/a50mancpetitionforabolition.html and http://slavetrade.parliament.uk/slavetrade/assetviews/documents/petitionfrommanufacturersandmerchantsofmanchesteragainsttheforeignslavetradeabolitionbill.html/ J. M. W. Turner, 'Upnor Castle, Kent', 1832–1833, and 'St Agatha's Abbey, Easby, Yorkshire, from the River Swale', 1798–1799, both in the Whitworth Collection; 'Cotton Pickers in the American South, 1895', Bolton Museum and Archives Service. Williams, 'Boll Weevil'. Palmer, A Touch of the Times, 224. Abraham Solomon (1824–1862), 'Mrs Rosa Samuel and Her Three Daughters', 1845, pencil with black chalk and white chalk on grey paper. 'Four Models of Freed Slaves', 1834–1836, Brazilian maker, mixed media, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Lhamon's Raising Cain: Blackface Performance, 1–55, delineates Jim Crow beginning in the 1820s in New York including an illustration of 'Dancing for Eels at Catherine Market from 1820' (p. 23). As a result, minstrelsy's beginnings in the Circum-Atlantic are now being placed earlier than the late 1840s. Label accompanying Brazilian models, Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery, inserted April 2008. Label accompanying Brazilian models, Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery, inserted April 2008. Thomas Stothard, 'Voyage of the Sable Venus', engraving in Edwards, History Civil and Commercial, republished in Honour, Images of Blacks in Western Art, 4.1: 32, image 4. Godfried Donkor, Triptych related to Stothard's 'Voyage of the Sable Venus', three collaged sheets, 2005. Donkor, 'Interview with Alan Rice', 2005. Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic, 27. Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic, 61. Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic, 139. Godfried Donkor, 'Dessert' from Vauxhall Pleasure series [Prince Regent and black servant], collage, 2001. William Hogarth, 'Marriage à la Mode, Plate 4: The Countess's Levée', 1745. And indeed his most recent installation at Hackney: Godfried Donkor, 'Financial Times', Exhibition at Hackney Museum, March 2007. Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic, 21–22. Donkor, 'Interview with Alan Rice', 2007. Sue Flowers, 'One Tenth', installation as part of the ABOLISHED? exhibition, Lancaster City Museums, July–October 2007. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. There are only three voyages for the Barlborough listed in the TSTD, however, Melinda Elder has conclusively shown that, after the three voyages that shipped slaves to Jamaica, there was a fourth slaving voyage which returned from Antigua in 1757. This was the final slaving voyage of the Barlborough, which was put up for sale by Dodshon Foster the following spring. Email response from Melinda Elder, 2 October 2008. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. Lubaina Himid, 'Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service', iInstallation as part of the ABOLISHED? exhibition, Lancaster City Museums, July–October 2007. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. Quoted in Elder, Slave Trade, n.p. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. To read about the STAMP project and view Kevin Dalton Johnson's 'Captured Africans' memorial, visit http://www.uclan.ac.uk/abolition/. Flowers and Himid, ABOLISHED?, n.p. Butinx and Karp, 'Tactical Museologies', 215.
Referência(s)