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These Things Matter Exhibition

From:

17 November 2022
To:

19 February 2023
Weston Library, Oxford
Broad Street
Oxford
OX1 3BG

17 November 2022 to 19 February 2023

Broad Street
Oxford, OX1 3BG
View Venue Website

These Things Matter Exhibition: Empire, Exploitation and Everyday Racism. Image: Clark’s Chart of The World (1822) depicting areas with different ‘degrees of civilisation’.
These Things Matter Exhibition: Empire, Exploitation and Everyday Racism. Image: Clark’s Chart of The World (1822) depicting areas with different ‘degrees of civilisation’.

About These Things Matter Exhibition

These Things Matter: Empire, Exploitation and Everyday Racism is a new exhibition opening at The Bodleian Library in Oxford on 17 November 2022.

In collaboration with the Museum of Colour and Fusion Arts, the exhibition will feature the work of seven contemporary artists, who have created work in response to artefacts from the Bodleian’s collections which demonstrate how everyday communications maintained the British Empire and Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The curator and founder of the Museum of Colour, Samenua Sesher, personally selected the artefacts, held in the libraries’ private collections of over 13 million items.

The Slave Bible (1807), a censored version of the Bible specifically made to teach a pro-slavery version of Christianity, was Sesher’s entry point into the library’s collections, inspiring her to look for more objects that were symptomatic of how everyday materials enabled and maintained the slave trade.

Other items include Clark’s Chart of The World (1822), a brightly coloured view of the world depicting areas with different ‘degrees of civilisation’, as well as accounts from slave owners, scientists and artists.

The contemporary works created in response span sculpture, installation, sound art, poetry and more, by artists Bunmi Ogunsiji, Grace Lee, Amina Atiq, Dirty Freud, Nilupa Yasmin, Mahdy Abo Bahat and Johannah Latchem. Works include a spoken word piece, an audio-visual artwork and a mixed-media installation.


Tickets

Free

Additional information

The exhibition is available to view in-person at the Blackwell Hall in the Weston Library at Oxford and globally through the MoC’s digital platform.