1 - 2 of 2
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
2. Bristol, slavery and the politics of representation: the Slave Trade Gallery in the Bristol Museum
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Otele,Olivette (Author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- Apr 2012
- Published:
- Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Social Semiotics
- Journal Title Details:
- 22(2) : 155-172
- Notes:
- In 1996 the city of Bristol celebrated its maritime past by focusing on key explorers while forgetting to mention their involvement in transatlantic conquests, and in particular in the slave trade. This partial amnesia led to a local controversy and, as a result, Black and White liberals together with the local authority organised an exhibition in 1999 on Bristol and the Slave Trade. A year later, the exhibition was transferred from the Bristol Museum to a different site and became a permanent part of the display in the Bristol Industrial Museum. This article analyses the ways in which the period of the transatlantic slave trade was officially represented and perceived by visitors to the Slave Trade Gallery. The paper examines the politics of memory by trying to answer key questions concerning Bristol's commemoration of the past in a context in which multiculturalism was a hotly debated issue.