Join us at the World Museum for an afternoon of discussions and encounters with historical objects focused on transatlantic slavery’s impact on the environment.
Invited speakers will examine links between the creation of plantations in the Americas and current ecological crises. They will also explore how enslaved Africans and their descendants developed alternative ways to interact with the land and how some of these strategies of resilience can be used to promote healing today.
Participants to the session will be invited to participate in conversations which will inform displays at Tate Liverpool and the new International Slavery Museum. The event is part of the International Slavery Museum ”Call and Response” workshop series. These are free, interactive sessions that allow the public to hear responses and ”respond” themselves to key questions in order to inform how the museum represents traumatic histories.
The session will begin with an introduction by curator Alexander Scott, followed by short presentations by artist Imani Jacqueline Brown and a guest speaker responding to the call “How does the land remember slavery?”. After this the public will be invited to respond and ask questions. Participants will then have the opportunity to engage in an interactive session looking at materials from the International Slavery Museum’s collection.
Biographies
Imani Jacqueline Brown
Imani Jacqueline Brown is an artist, activist, and architectural researcher from New Orleans, based in London. Her work investigates the “continuum of extractivism,” which spans from settler-colonial genocide and slavery to fossil fuel production and climate change. As her work exposes the layers of violence and resistance that comprise the foundations of settler-colonial society, it opens space to imagine paths to ecological reparations. Among other things, Imani is a PhD candidate in Geography at Queen Mary, University of London.
Alexander Scott
Alexander Scott is a curator at the International Slavery Museum. He is interested in what objects, images and documents can tell us about how transatlantic slavery shapes the world we live in today. By looking closely at historic paintings of plantations, he proposes to explore how we can recognise how sugar production transformed the Caribbean’s ecology and environment in ways that continue to impact the present-day climate crisis.
Tao Leigh Goffe
London-born, New York-based writer and artist Tao Leigh Goffe is the founder/Executive Director of Dark Laboratory and authored a book by the same title. She is Associate Professor of environmental humanities and geology at the City University of New York. She has worked at universities including Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Leiden, NYU, and Johns Hopkins. Her research is rooted in decolonial thought, literature, and theories of labour centring Black feminism’s engagements with Indigeneity and Asian diasporic racial formations. As an undergraduate at Princeton, she studied literature, molecular biology and dark room photography. Dr. Goffe earned her doctorate from Yale University.
Accessibility
The World Museum is located on William Brown Street in Liverpool. It is close to the entrance to the Queensway Tunnel. This event is taking place in the Treasure House Theatre which is on the first floor. There are lifts to all floors. Alternatively you can take the stairs.
- Toilets are located on all floors and they are all accessible to wheelchair users
- There is a Changing Places toilet on the first floor. Please collect a key from the Information Desk on the ground floor
- Wheelchairs are available to borrow
- There are a limited number of blue badge parking spaces on William Brown Street, outside the museum
- Baby changing facilities are available on the ground, second, third, fourth and fifth floors
- Assistance dogs are welcome in the museum
For more information before your visit:
- Email: worldmuseum@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
- Call: 0151 478 4393 (Open Tuesday-Sunday, 10.00-17.00)