London, Sugar & Slavery gallery reveals city�s untold history
What is London�s dirty big secret? What does a sweet cuppa have to do with a terrible crime against humanity? What product links millions of enslaved Africans and London�s Dockers? How did English ladies and freedom fighters in the Caribbean find themselves united in struggle? Who really led the abolition campaign for the transatlantic slave trade? And what price freedom?
Once the fourth largest slaving port in the world, London�s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade is examined in a new exhibition, London, Sugar & Slavery at the Museum in Docklands..
Set in a former sugar warehouse built to store produce from the Caribbean plantations, the Museum is tangible evidence of London�s connections with slavery.
The gallery will reveal an untold history, which joins the dots between ordinary Londoners with a taste for the sweeter things in life, arch-capitalism, despoiled West African civilizations and the thriving multicultural city we enjoy today.
Personal accounts, film, music, interactives and over 140 objects will bring home the complexities and humanity of the issues around the roaring trade in sugar and humans, slave resistance and the abolition campaign, and the legacies of the enduring relationship between London and the Caribbean.
Exquisite African artefacts pre-dating Europeans� arrival in the continent, including a bronze leopard from Benin, and the beautiful bust of a Yoruba King, attest to the rich cultural history of West African art. The gallery explores how a sophisticated society was debased in European minds to justify the inhumane mechanics of an industry that gave rise to obscene profits, horrific brutality and sowed the seeds for racism today.
An immersive sound and light experience, encourages visitors to consider the meaning of enslavement and freedom both in terms of the transatlantic slave trade and for us all today, whilst spaces in the gallery are given over to community projects especially designed to involve Londoners of all ages and backgrounds in a story that binds us all.
The gallery will challenge what people think they know about the transatlantic slave trade and show how this terrible traffic made the London we know today.
David Spence, Director of the Museum in Docklands said: �We hope that the gallery will help Londoners from all backgrounds understand their own heritage and identity better. People may find it uncomfortable, but to grasp this is to begin to understand many facets of society today, including attitudes towards race and the melding of British, African and Caribbean cultures.�
Visit the only permanent exhibition to examine London�s involvement in transatlantic slavery in the new thought-provoking new gallery, London, Sugar & Slavery,
www.museumindocklands.org.uk
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