‘I Dream of Congo: Narratives from The Great Lakes’ is a unique exhibition combining words and images from renowned international creatives alongside a groundbreaking exhibition of photos taken by women in eastern Congo. The exhibition celebrates the hope and optimism that pervades in the region despite years of war. It poses hard questions around the international community’s inaction in the face of the conflict, the continuing illicit trade in minerals from Congo and the failure to stem the tide of sexual violence.
During the February 2013 exhibition launch, The Frontline Club, Women for Women International, One Billion Rising and Save the Congo held events in the space that related to the theme. The exhibition was first shown in February 2013 at Conway Hall London, before moving on to other venues in the UK, including a conference on the Democratic Republic of Congo at St Andrews University in April 2013. In 2014, 'I Dream of Congo' formed part of the 'Brutal Exposure' exhibition at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. Most recently, the exhibition appeared at the June Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London's Excel Centre, spearheaded by William Hague and Angelina Jolie. At this Summit we hosted an exclusive event and film screening with Dr Denis Mukwege.
Het Scheepvaartmuseum is the National Maritime Museum of the Netherlands. Housed in a seventeenth-century naval storehouse, the museum showcases the ways in which Dutch culture has been influenced by the sea. A vast array of collections, including paintings, maps, maritime instruments and weapons illustrate these stories. Just outside the museum, there is a replica of an eighteenth century ship, the Amsterdam, which once sailed between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. With fifteen permanent exhibitions and a free audio tour, the museum's four million annual visitors are exposed to over five hundred years of both Dutch, and world, history.
Dutch involvement in slave trading is highlighted in the 'See you in the Golden Age' exhibition. The interpretation here focusses on the seventeenth century, a time when the Netherlands was one of the most economically and culturally rich countries in the world. While the exhibition reflects this boom period through a variety of collections, it also illustrates the darker side of Dutch prosperity. By making use of contemporary narratives, the museum provides its visitors a chance 'meet' historical characters including Amimba, a young African girl who was forced into slavery.
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has over forty display galleries that explore the development of Birmingham as a city, through its diverse communities. Since opening in 1885, the museum has built a vast collection of social history, art, archaeology and ethnographic items. It is one of nine sites managed by Birmingham Museums, the largest museums trust in the UK, whose vision for their service is, ‘to reflect Birmingham to the world, and the world to Birmingham.’ Housed within Birmingham's council buildings in the city's Chamberlain Square, the site welcomes around one million visitors a year.
Slavery and abolition feature as themed displays within the ‘Birmingham: Its People and Its History’ gallery, which dominates the third floor of the Victorian museum. Initially developed as part of the 2007 bicentennial commemoration activities, the displays highlight the contradictory nature of Birmingham’s relationship with the slave trade. Visitors are informed, through both interpretive text panels and collections artifacts on display, about the goods manufactured in Birmingham that were taken to Africa to trade in exchange for human beings. Simultaneously, the presence of antislavery activists in the city is explained, with digital interactives, portraits and abolitionist material culture all illustrating the role of Quakers and other prominent abolitionist figures, including Joseph Sturge and Olaudah Equiano.
The displays also alert visitors as to the existence of modern slavery by a panel headed with the words, ‘Around the world, people are still enslaved today.’ The visitors are then invited to leave their own comments as to how society can help to stop it in their community and around the world.