Slavery Remembrance Day

I gave myself a bit of time off this afternoon so that I could leg it over to the Albert Dock to hear the artist Kimathi Donkor talk about his piece, ‘UK Diaspora’, at the International Slavery Museum to mark Slavery Remembrance Day.

The piece is very striking and consists of 10 collages depicting people and objects relating to the UK’s involvement in transatlantic slavery, arranged to form a map of Britain. Kimathi’s talk was absolutely fascinating and, afterwards, whilst he was waiting to do a filmed interview, I asked him whether I could take his picture. Happily, he said “Yes”!

You can see a couple of details from ‘UK Diaspora’ in this article along with information about the museum’s current exhibition, ‘Ink and Blood: Stories of Abolition’ http://museumcrush.org/international-slavery-museum-marks-ten-years-with-stories-of-ink-and-blood/

And you can find out more about Kimathi and his work at www.kimathidonkor.net

The port of Liverpool, of course, played a key role in the triangular transatlantic slave trade, where many millions of human beings - and goods including cotton, tobacco and sugar - were shipped between West Africa, the Americas and Europe.

The legacy of that shameful period in all our histories can still be felt throughout the world as the recent tragic events in Charlottesville, and Trump’s disgusting response to them, demonstrate all too clearly. And it's something we all need to address urgently. Racism and white privilege don't just disappear by themselves - centuries of cultural attitudes and responses are still deeply ingrained and need constant challenging. None of us are immune.

Here's Burning Spear with the classic, ‘Slavery Days’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=29LzyyqHA48

(PS In ‘Other News’… Encouraged by some recent ‘camera chat’ with Goatee, I've just bought myself a second hand Fujifilm X-T1. Yikes - there's a lot to learn!! Today’s Blip is my first attempt with it but I feel that I'll need to spend ages getting to grips with it properly!)