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(Above) Zineb Sedira, Photograph from Saphir 2006. © Zineb Sedira
Bristol’s leading arts institutions come together this weekend to mark the beginning of the city’s exploration of the contentious and complicated role the port played in the slave trade.
Two exhibitions open on Saturday September 15 2007 at the Arnolfini and Bristol’s City Art Gallery that examine the trade in slaves and contemporary issues of human trafficking and exploitation while further exhibitions and initiatives open later in the year.
The series of exhibitions takes in museums, galleries and heritage sites across the city and utilises a variety of mediums and objects – from seeds used as ballast on slave ships, the Clifton Suspension Bridge re-made in sugar and slavery as seen through the eyes of black filmmakers.
Together the season of exhibitions, off-site projects, films, re-enactments and community education projects make up Bristol’s visual arts response to Abolition 200, a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Act to abolish slavery in British ships .
Like Liverpool and Hull, Bristol played a key role in the transatlantic traffic in human beings that for 250 years fuelled the expansion of the British Empire. The collaborative initiative is designed to provide a nuanced and multi-faceted insight into some of the complex issues involved in slavery both historically and in the world today.
Ursula Biemann, Sahara Chronicle 2007 10 part video installation.
At the Arnolfini an exhibition called Port City: On Mobility and Exchange runs between September 15 and November 11 2007 that addresses issues of global migration, trade and contemporary slavery.
It includes work by 20 artists including Maria Thereza Alves, Yto Barrida, Ursula Biemann, Meschac Gaba, Melanie Jackson, Erik van Lieshout, William Pope L and Zineb Sedira and features gallery-based exhibitions accompanied by off-site projects, made in response to the specific context of Bristol.
Seeds of Change, a project by Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves uses seeds contained within soil used as ballast on the ships entering Bristol. The ballast seeds, some of which have lain dormant for hundreds of years, have been germinated and tended by local groups to create a garden of living history.
Other works draw attention to issues of migration. Ursula Biemann has developed an exhibition callled Sahara Chronicle, a video installation focusing on migration routes across the desert.
Moroccan artist Yto Barrada’s work refers to the Straits of Gibraltar – the heavily policed divide between Africa and Europe. Her photographic series Sleepers presents images from her home town of Tangiers, where would-be émigrés await their moment of passage.
Yto Barrada, Sleepers, 2006. © Copyright Yto Barrada
At Bristol’s City Museum & Art Gallery an immersive multi media installation by Bénin-born artist Romuald Hazoumé uses a variety of found objects, video and photographs to form the body of the artwork.
La Bouche du Roi, which also opens on September 15 and runs until October 28 2007, is an immersive multi-media installation full of haunting sounds and evocative smells with the main body of the work consisting of 304 ‘masks’ made from black plastic petrol cans, with smaller masks representing women and children.
Literally translated La Bouche du Roi means ‘the mouth of the King’ and refers to the port in Bénin from which many slaves were transported.
At the city’s recently re-launched and refurbished artist run space, Spike Island – the organisation is working with Right Track & Spike in the City, the Children’s Society project, to develop an ongoing, in-depth and sustained relationship around artists’ practice.
Working with young people between 10-17 years of age who are, or may become, involved with the criminal justice system, the Spike in the City programme aims to reduce the over-representation of black and minority ethnic young people in the youth justice system.
Meschac Gaba, Sweetness, 2006, Sugar. Courtesy the artist and Galleria Continua, San Gimignano Sculpture
Spike Island will commission a piece or body of work informed by the young people’s interests, experiences and perspectives and will select an artist to work with and will engage in a process of consultation and awareness-raising events to inform their involvement and exchange with the selected artist.
Discussions around the national commemoration of the abolition of slavery will be a key starting point for a project.
Among the other projects slated in for the season of events is an initiative called Sweet History/Sugar City opening at the Architecture Centre between October 2007 and March 2008 that will work with young people to explore the impact of Bristol’s sugar trade on the city’s built environment.
Young people (11-22 year olds) will work on the production of short films about buildings in the city, and the social and economic issues, which had a bearing on their development. The Archimedia project, which is involved the development of the Knowle West Media Centre, will carry out research and help develop an educational resource and website.
The Architecture Centre will host a number of events to disseminate the work.
Melanie Jackson, The Undesirables (work in progress). Images by Melanie JacksonMixed Media Installation
In winter 2007 the Decibel award-winning artist Harold Offeh will work with a team of artists and Bristol-based community groups at the Bamboo Club to create moving image projects exploring the cultural impact and legacy of the slave trade and race relations across the city.
Reflecting on the past and present but looking to the future the participatory projects will use re-enactment as a device to respond to the specific sites and context of Bristol.
Finally, the city’s Watershed cinema will see a season of films begin in October 2007 that will focus on how black filmmakers have reclaimed slavery as a topic for cinematic exploration.
The short season, called through the Lens Brightly: Black Cinema and Slavery, will look at titles that best present what the godfather of black filmmaking Oscar Micheaux wished for, "to view the coloured heart from close range".
See www.watershed.co.ukfor further information.
All photographs from the exhibition Port City, showing at the Arnolfini until November 11 2007.
