Equiano, Frances, The Mysterious Other Man In Red, And Also…Belle And Marcus Are Just A Few of The Amazing Characters Whose Paintings Grace This Groundbreaking Exhibition
Believed To Possibly Be Olaudah Equiano of ‘The Sons of Africa’
(A Famous Enigmatic Painting Whose Subject Is Unconfirmed But Nonetheless Beautiful. The Sons of Africa)
Ignatius Sancho
(A Specialist Subject of Actor Paterson Joseph, About Whom We Have Previously Written @patersondjoseph)
Inside, Across Approximately 12 Large Gallery Rooms There Are Great Installations, Large Portraits, Various Fascinating Paints, Statues, Objects, Audios, Films, And Videos, Telling The Stories of Great Characters, Moments And Events Acknowledging Black Artists, Artworks, And History As Intertwined And Entangled With British History, Caribbean History, Colonial History And World History. All Now Presented With A More Authentic Narrative And From From A More Diverse, Equitable And Inclusive Perspective.
The First Three Main Themes of The Exhibition Are Entitled:
‘SITES OF POWER’
This Includes ‘Portraits and Presence’, ‘Conflict And Ambition’, And ‘Imagining India’. This Includes Portraits Reflecting The Love of The Aristocracy For Commissioning Paintings of Themselves, Either As Successful & Wealthy Slave Merchants, Colonialists Or Abolitionists, Their Families And Their Grand Estates Bought With Slave Trading Or An Association To It.
‘BEAUTY AND DIFFERENCE’
For Example – Artwork And Prints, Photography, Poetry And Sculpture (The Mass Media of The Day) Designed To Aestheticise African & Caribbean Enslavement And Establish Aesthetic Norms In Order To Make It More Palatable To Society In General. Especially The Aristocracy And The Plantation Classes.
Plus It Served A Second Role In Creating Categorisation of Races Over Classes In Order To Justify The Enslavement of Africans Subsequent To The Decline of Indentured White Labourers (As Explained By Renouned British-Nigerian Historian Professor David Olusoga).
The 1661 Barbados Slave Code Which Was The Template To Slavery’s Systematic Control Throughout The Colonies Made Clear That The Punishments Detailed In There Were Specifically For Black Slaves As Distinct From White Servants.
From This Stemmed A Third Element of Control. Divide And Conquer. Setting Black And White Workers Against Each Other.
All of These Troupes Are Still In Operation Today. From Film, TV, And Music Industry. To Everyday Policing, Police Brutality, The Legal Justice System, Imprisonment And Prison Conditions.
‘CROSSING WATERS’
(Which Includes Exhibition Elements Such As ‘The Aquatic Sublime’ And ‘Where To From Here’.) Artist John Akomfrah Presents A Multi-Screen Video Installation Showing The Fifty Minute Film ‘Vertigo Sea’ Which Addresses The History Of Slavery And Colonisation, Migration, War And Conflict, And Climate Change. Particularly The Destructive Ecological Consequences of Extraction Economies. Which Are Still Impacting Different Generations And Geographies.
Frank Bowlings’ Paintings Express A Myriad of Imaginings, Thoughts And Feelings Based On Factual Reportings About The Horrors of The Middle Passage (Slave Entrapment In Ships Across The Atlantic) As Told By The Few That Survived It And Some Crew Who Recoiled From It And The Ships Own Records.
The Sons of Africa (A Group of Free, Freed or Escaped Former Enslaved Men Turned Anti-Slavery Advocates), Fredrick Douglas (Famed Freedman From America And Subsequent Public Speaker) Frances Barber (Originally Named Quashey And Enslaved By Jamaican Plantation Owner Colonel Bathurst. Heir To Wordsmith Samuel Johnson Who Became His Guardian After Bathurst Returned To England And Later Died). Believed To Be Painted By Renowned Artist Joshua Reynolds c 1770. And Ingatious Sanchez Were All Abolistionists Who Were Witnesses To The Horrors of Slavery And Publicly Campaigned To Abolish It.
TheOrator.Press ~ A New, Monthly, Online, Independent Magazine 