Carving Out Truths: Sculpture and Slavery, Walker Art Gallery
Carving Out Truths: Sculpture and Slavery was a co-curated project working with young people from Liverpool’s Black and Global Ethnic Majority communities, who are typically underrepresented and misrepresented within museums.
The programme empowered them to research and share histories related to slavery, colonialism and empire linked to the Walker Art Gallery’s neoclassical sculpture collection.
Neoclassical sculpture emerged in the early 18th century alongside the rapidly expanding British Empire. Public monuments depicting Britain’s so-called ‘heroes’ were erected across the country, paid for by local merchants whose wealth was made from trading enslaved African people and the goods they produced.
The histories of these sculptures were researched collaboratively through workshops and talks supported by artists, curators, educators, historians and activists.
“This project has given me a progressive outlook on Black women’s position in society today. My intervention draws attention to Phillis Wheatley, a Black Christian poet who was persecuted because of her gender and heritage. Nearly 300 years later, I, a Black Christian poet, have the platform to celebrate her life and work, and to voice these silenced histories through the Carving Out Truths project. This work reveals the depths and the richness of history which I was honoured to be part of.”
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Through the sharing of knowledge and lived experience, this project produced a series of interventions in the galleries drawing attention to individuals and stories that were previously excluded, creating a space for learning, dialogue and recovery.
Carving Out Truths involved 35 collaborators and has been seen by more than 60,000 people, challenging established narratives in art history that continue to uphold silenced racial biases in the wake of British slavery.
Carving Out Truths: Sculpture and Slavery was shortlisted for the Championing Social Justice Award at the Museums Change Lives Awards 2024.