Wilberforce Institute
Exhibitions
Exhibition
Since 2006, the Wilberforce Institute has been producing world-class research that supports efforts to tackle modern slavery, coercion and human trafficking, both at home and abroad – continuing the legacy of William Wilberforce. In 2007 Freedom Festival was established to mark the 200th anniversary of Wilberforce’s law, the Slave Trade Act 1807, to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire.
Follow the trail of important pop-up exhibitions from the Wilberforce Institute.
HOMELANDS - Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull
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16Wilberforce Institute |
Wednesday 30 Aug – Friday 1 Sep
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This photography exhibition examines the shared homelands of British service personnel and Sierra Leonian people during the upheaval of the Second World War. Wartime photography by Corporal Fred Birden has been selected and reinterpreted by local members of the Hull Afro Caribbean Association who were either born, lived or worked in West Africa. Their insights bring a fresh dimension to an important privately owned collection of photographs of Sierra Leone just prior to decolonisation from Britain. The co-produced exhibition, led by Dr Nick Evans (University of Hull) is part of ongoing work between the Hull Afro Caribbean Association, Hull Museums and the University of Hull to increase the visibility of Hull's African Caribbean community.
This exhibition was co-produced by a partnership brought together to develop new ways of conceiving and creating community-led exhibitions by involving members of local organisations from the outset. The first stakeholder meeting took place during Black History Month 2021, at the headquarters of the Hull Afro Caribbean Association’s headquarters, on a weekend, so that those with family or working responsibilities could attend. Members of the partnership subsequently met at different venues and times to ensure everyone shaped the exhibition. This community-centred approach enabled groups often excluded from public consultation to identify images and themes, provide interpretation panels, and identify objects from their homes for the exhibition that arose from this collaboration. Entitled 'Homelands: Photography from Sierra Leone in the 1940s', it purposefully challenges negative depictions of Hull's only twin city - Freetown in Sierra Leone. Crucially, this inclusive approach enabled members of Hull’s migrant communities to shape the way the exhibition developed.
Venture Smith: An American Freedom Fighter - Documenting Venture Smith Project
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15Wilberforce House |
Wednesday 23 Aug – Saturday 2 Sep
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Venture Smith (c. 1729-1805) is now the most documented survivor, and the iconic story, of the Middle Passage to the Americas. The Documenting Venture Smith Project a collaboration by the Beecher House Center for Equal Rights, USA; the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull, UK; and the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, has used its extensive research to create this international travelling exhibit telling Venture’s story and the larger story of the British Slave Trade to it’s American Colonies. It has produced a biography of Venture Smith, reprints in English and Fante of his 1798 Narrative, and school programs.
Broteer Furro (aka Venture Smith) was born about January 1729 in we believe the Kingdom of Ouangara in West Africa (near Northern Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria today). His father was the ruler and he was tutored, educated, and raised to be a leader of his people. When he was about 10 a terrorist army destroyed the kingdom, killed his father, and captured Broteer. He was marched over 1,000 miles across West Africa and down to Anomabo on the Gold Coast (today Ghana) where he was sold to the steward of the Rhode Island slave ship Charming Susanna, and called “Venture”. He survived the Middle Passage to Barbados and Newport, Rhode Island, and then 26 years as a slave in British Colonial New England.
In 1760 his last owner. Oliver Smith consented, to let Venture redeem himself for £85. Venture spent five years working, when not needed by Smith, to raise the money. In spring 1765 Venture made his final payment and regained his freedom. He then spent ten years on British Colonial Long Island earning the money to buy and free his wife Meg, his two sons, his daughter, and several other enslaved Africans.
In 1798 he wrote his autobiography, one of the defining books on freedom. At its heart, his Narrative is a story about freedom and its associated virtues. It is a quintessential American story written by a self-defined African American who lived the American Dream. It embodies several core messages about slavery, abolition, and their legacies that still resonate today. The Project has produced a biography of Venture Smith, reprints in English and Fante of his 1798 Narrative, and school programs.
ADINKRA SYMBOL ART TRAIL
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14Museum Gardens |
Wednesday 30 Aug - Saturday 2 Sep
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16Wilberforce Institute |
Family Craft Workshops Saturday 2 Sep & Sunday 3 Sep
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The Adinkra art trail is a family activity across the Museums Quarter and encourages families to explore Adinkra symbols and their significance to the Ghanaian diaspora. The symbols are now carved into the public spaces of Hull (Market Place and Monument Bridge) and feature in the artwork displayed in the reception area of the Wilberforce Institute. The trail around the Museums Quarter (from 23rd August) encourages visitors to learn more about the symbols and how they link with freedom in Ghanaian culture.
Pick up your free flyer from any museum in the museum's quarter or the Wilberforce Institute. Complete the trail and win a sticker.
Exploring Adinkra Symbols - Family Craft Activity
Saturday 2 September & Sunday 3 September, 12-3pm, Wilberforce Institute, 27 High Street, Hull, HU1 1NE
Free, drop-in
In this free, drop-in, family-friendly activity session, artist Glynis Neslen encourages us to learn about Adinkra symbols and their meanings, and make your own printed stories, badges, and fabric inspired by the symbols. There will also be an opportunity to learn more about Ghana and its Culture and Language.
Adinkra Symbols were originally created by the King NAN KWADWO AGYEMANG ADINKRA of the Bono people of Gyaman in Ghana, around the 1700s. With his defeat the Adinkra writing system spread to the Asante and Akan people and beyond.
The Ashanti people of Ghana originally created Adinkra cloth to wear on special occasions, like funerals and weddings, and other important religious ceremonies
Adrinkra is the writing system in the Akan religion. It consists of pictorial symbolism created by the Ashanti craftsmen of Ghana. The Adrinkra symbolizes the Akan way of life as one symbol can represent a proverb philosophical though, cosmology, and worldview. They are often used on pottery and woodcarvings.
This activity is linked with a new Adinkra Symbol Trail across the Museums Quarter as part of this year's Freedom Festival.
Uncovering Modern Slavery exhibition - Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull
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Schedule |
16Wilberforce Institute |
Wednesday 30 Aug – Friday 1 Sep
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This is a multi-media exhibition comprised of information boards, small display items and short films including the Anywhere Kids film.
Modern Slavery can affect children and adults irrespective of age, ethnicity, gender, religion or background.
Uncovering Modern Slavery is an exhibition created in partnership with the Humber Modern Slavery Partnership and the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull. Modern Slavery in the UK can take many forms including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, criminal exploitation, domestic servitude and organ harvesting. This exhibition highlights how criminal exploitation is a growing form of Modern Slavery in the UK.
The number of people identified as potential victims of Modern Slavery has been rising year on year, with over 10,000 people referred to authorities in 2019. The true number of people trapped in Modern Slavery is estimated to be much higher. Modern Slavery in the UK can take many forms including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, criminal exploitation, domestic servitude and organ harvesting. Forced labour is the most commonly identified form of Modern Slavery in the UK, fuelled by a drive for cheap products and services, with little regard for the people behind them. Criminal exploitation is a growing form of Modern Slavery. In the UK, British children are commonly forced into ‘county lines’ drug trafficking and Vietnamese nationals are trafficked to work in cannabis production.
