UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS
Gallery Trails: Traces of the Trade
Four collections-based trails throughout the permanent galleries.
To show how art and design were linked into the transatlantic slave trade, the V&A has highlighted objects on display in its permanent collection. Many of these objects also recall the legacies of the slave trade that remain in Britain today and continue to shape our society.
The four trails, with each one telling its own story, feature objects that have been chosen for their hidden and often unexpected links to slavery. High-profile black Britons bring their perspectives to the trails, showing how art and design reflect the trading of slaves and amplify the links between Africa, the Caribbean and Britain.
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Trail 1: Consuming the Black Atlantic
The appearance of exotic goods in British shops and homes was the outcome of a sophisticated trade network between Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. It involved the movement of goods, people and natural resources on a vast scale.
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Trail 2: Black Servants in British Homes
There has been a black presence in Britain since at least roman times but numbers remained small until the second half of the 17th century. From 1650 Britain's increasing involvement in transatlantic trade, particularly the trade in slaves, brought more and more black Africans to its shores.
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Trail 3: Britain & The West Indies
The West Indies brought vast profits to the European colonists, particularly as the sugar industry took off. But they also required a constant flow of slaves from Africa to work the plantations.
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Trail 4: Representing Slavery & Abolitionism
Much of the visual culture relating to the abolition of the British slave trade emphasises the role of white abolitionists such as William Wilberforce and Granville Sharpe over that of African campaigners such as Olaudah Equiano and Ottabah Cugoano.