Attitude: Remembering Slavery
Manchester residents reflect on the legacy of Manchester's links to the transatlantic slave trade
A group of people from Manchester worked with Manchester Art Gallery to create a new display for the Attitude section of the CIS Manchester Gallery. This display examines the city’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and the impact this has had on local communities and our city today.
Visit the new display in the CIS Manchester Gallery on the Ground Floor.
Using objects from the collections of the gallery and The Manchester Museum as a starting point, we discussed historical facts relating to the transatlantic slave trade and its legacy in Manchester.
Each member of the group also carried out their own research to come up with personal responses to the issues raised in these discussions.
We commissioned graphic designer Nathan Carter to work with the group to create new artworks for the display.
Marina: I used simple colour and words to illustrate that colour is as it is and that there is no difference… I thought about the eye and how because the eye is clear, it sees colour. But if your eye was red everyone would be red. So colour is as it is and there is no difference because we are all human, the same inside. And it is how it is.
I was also inspired by the book ‘What’s So Amazing About Grace?’ by Philip Yancey. The final chapter of the book summed it up; ‘The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.’
Arlea: This picture was taken by myself in January, on a recent trip to Manhattan; I went on a tour bus and we passed this statue. They didn’t say too much about it, but what they basically said is that it resembles slavery and that the remains of 400 slaves were found underneath there and they are still looking at the remains of the bones and notice so much decay and the torture that they—the enslaved Africans—actually went through while working. It actually brought a tear to my eye—how could people do things like this? At the end of the day they were human beings too.
It signifies a lot where it is actually based and people can see it. I just wish there was a lot more to actually say what it was about. It is only a statue and little sign to say what it was, but there needs to be a lot more information so people know what they are looking at and what it means and what is actually there.
Gbenga wrote the poem ‘Free Thyself’ and drew an image to go with it: I am an advocate for people seeking self freedom. It is one thing being given freedom and it is another thing taking it, you are not just going to sit down at home and fight for freedom. It makes more meaning to you because you actually fought for it… Sometimes we forget there are little prejudices that still attach to you because you were once a slave. But you still have to fight to stand up and fight—don’t make those prejudices hold you back. So these chains that have been broken signify those prejudices and you have the key which is just in your power—educating yourself, trying to get everything you can from life so you are not going to make yourself go back and be stuck in that same position where you don’t want to find yourself in.
If you turn the picture on its side, it is a two way artwork. In Africa to enunciate where you are from, they perform tribal rites; if you are from a drummer family or if you are from a hunter family you have a different kind of mark. So it is like freeing yourself—I titled it ‘Free Thyself’—and it is just the will of man, you have to make a conscious decision that you want to free yourself. It takes an inner will to be determined to free yourself.
How do you think we should commemorate Manchester's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade? Email your thoughts to Helena Wetterberg, Community Interpretation Officer.
Image&Identity: Remembering Slavery
Remembering Slavery Events
