Creating Guerrilla Memorials in a Regional Context

Dr Alan Rice (University of Central Lancashire) will speak on ‘Creating Guerrilla Memorials in a Regional Context: Slavery and Abolition in the North-West of England from the 1760s to the Present’

This paper discusses recent work in the North West to memorialise slavery and abolition in the context of Paul Gilroy and Barnon Hesse's discussions of the legacy of empire and contemporary multiculturalism and Paul Ricoeur and Dominick LaCapra's more abstract disquisition of the working of memory. It describes the importance of Lancaster historically in the Transatlantic slave trade (mainly eighteenth century) through ghostly traces of slaves and details the historical amnesia that exists in the city. It outlines the development of the STAMP organisation which aimed to counter these tendencies by the development of a memorial unveiled in 2005. It shows how the work of three artists, Kevin Dalton-Johnson, Sue Flowers and Lubaina Himid have been instrumental in foregrounding Lancaster's involvement in the slave trade in the run up to and during the Bicentennial celebrations in 2007. It uses published and unpublished interviews with the three artists to discuss contexts of memorialisation, public and private memory and community involvement that have contributed to their final pieces which have examined the legacy of slavery in the North-West in its full transatlantic context and have made links to contemporary issues of bonded labour in the wake of the deaths of 23 Chinese cockle pickers in February 2004. The second half of the paper discusses Manchester as a case study for nineteenth century Transatlantic relations of pro and anti-slavery using artefacts and personalities such as Henry Box Brown and the relationship of cotton workers to Abraham Lincoln and the fight for Transnational social justice in the Civil War Period. Again the historical record will be juxtaposed with contemporary museum displays and memorialisation. The paper will use the author's theory of "guerrilla memorialisation" developed from theoretical paradigms around memory and memorials by Pierre Nora, Dionne Brand, James Young and Paul Ricoeur to show that the right kind of political response to amnesia can make art that is effective and dynamic enabling nation states, cities and localities to create memorial landscapes that are affecting and truly radical.

This lecture is part of the ISOS Seminar Series 2011/2012

Everyone welcome