This month I had the privilege of spending 10 days researching in Barbados: looking at colonial imagery at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society and also exploring the island as a site of ancestral memory. Whilst I was there I gave a lecture on African presences in 18th century print culture at Colleton Hall.
Colleton is poignant. It is a former plantation site which still has the remains of enslaved quarters, and was the former residence of Sir John Colleton - the man said to be one of the fathers of American slavery in the Carolinas. The House also contains the Rickwood Art Collection, which includes historical artworks specifically representing African subjects AND a gallery of traditional African and Oceanic art.
So this was a deeply relevant setting to be discussing my work.
The talk was called Presence and Place: Images of Africans in 18th century British Print Culture
You can watch and listen to an audiovisual version of the talk here:
Presence & Place - A Lecture given by Dr Temi Odumosu at Colleton House, Barbados from Dr Temi Odumosu on Vimeo.
