Was Manchester built by slaves? Capturing Greater Manchester’s response to the Bicentenary of the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade through work with communities, museums and galleries
As project manager of this complex collaborative project, we quickly put in place a much-needed productive partnership structure, advocated for and represented the project nationally and commissioned and managed a dedicated project delivery and creative team for the Revealing Histories partnership. We engaged over 4500 people in a programme of debates, song, dance poetry, music, film, photography and much more to gather and document responses to the real history of Greater Manchester’s connection with slavery. This powerful documentation resulted in the launch of a legacy website and permanent resource www.revealinghistories.org.uk.
The website was launched at MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry) with a dramatic re-enactment of the extraordinary history of Henry 'Box' Brown. In a specially commissioned piece, professional actors recreated the remarkable but agonising experience of how Henry Brown, a slave from Virginia, posted himself in a box 350 miles away to Philadelphia in the free North. Brown later came to lecture and then to live in Manchester. By dramatically highlighting this little known local story the legacy website gained extensive coverage in print, radio and TV.
Client: Revealing Histories Partnership, Renaissance North West, Heritage Lottery Fund
Partners: Arts about Manchester, Bolton Museum and Archive Service, Gallery Oldham, Manchester Art Gallery, The Manchester Museum, Touchstones Rochdale, Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, People's History Museum, The Whitworth Art Gallery
What we did: Project management including marketing and PR management, public engagement development and management, stakeholder engagement. The project ran for just under two years.
Photography shown: Jason Lock