Please join the New Art Exchange and community activist Lisa Robinson (Bright Ideas) for a discussion on her project 'Slave Trade Legacies.' This project forced heritage sites such as the Derwent Valley Mills in the Peak District to acknowledge their links to the slave trade. Lisa will talk about the pilot project (the past), the Slave Trade Legacies revisted (present) and the funding application she is preparing (future).
Robinson is also director of Bright Ideas Nottingham, an organisation that works with local people to effect change and improvement in their communities. It believes that community voice should be heard and that people from the community will inspire and direct the most necessary and positive changes in the places where they live. It seeks to improve services for local people through cultural brokerage and community engagement and involvement.
This event forms part of the 'Penny Lecture Series' in collaboration with the Univeristy of Nottingham, Backlit Art Gallery, and the National Justice Museum. Matthew Chesney (Director of BACKLIT) and Hannah-Rose Murray (PhD student, in the University of Nottingham) have curated a small exhibition to formerly enslaved African American Josiah Henson and his friend and benefactor, manufacturer and philanthropist Samuel Morley. Josiah Henson and Samuel Morley’s connected story represents the campaign for freedom, equality and human rights in Nottingham, and beyond. In the late nineteenth century, Samuel Morley organised a series of 'Penny Lectures' for the working classses. Designed to increase their education, men and women would pay just a penny to attend a variety of lectures on numerous subjects from science to politics.
We have resurrected the Penny Lecture Series in Nottingham, focusing on subjects that both men were passionate about, including community, antislavery and activism:
1. Wednesday 26 April 2017: Matthew Chesney (BACKLIT Art Gallery, 'Morley's Legacy in Nottingham', National Justice Museum. Register for free: morleyslegacy.eventbrite.co.uk
2. Tuesday 2 May 2017: Hannah-Rose Murray (University of Nottingham), 'African American Activism in Nottingham', Nottingham Contemporary. Register for free: africanamericanactivism.eventbrite.co.uk
3. Thursday 18 May 2017: Lisa Robinson (Bright Ideas), 'Slave Trade Legacies: Past, Present and Future', New Art Exchange. Register for free: slavetradelegacies.eventbrite.co.uk
4. Monday 29 May 2017: Professor Zoe Trodd (University of Nottingham), 'The Freedom Blueprint: How We End Contemporary Slavery ', National Justice Museum. Register for free: thefreedomblueprint.eventbrite.co.uk
5.Thursday 8 June 2017: Panya Banjoko (Nottingham Black Archive), 'Black History Heritage in Nottingham', New Art Exchange. Register for free: blackhistoryheritage.eventbrite.co.uk