Sharing Event: Rethinking the Benin Display

If you’ve visited our World Cultures Gallery, you'll have noticed some of the major changes we’re making as part of our World Cultures #WhereNext Project. The team has been busy working on the next intervention due to open in 2022 – the Benin redisplay, which celebrates the Edo kingdom’s brilliant inheritance of court art and confronts the violent colonial history behind its theft by a British force in 1897.

To help address historical legacies of injustice and create a more inclusive and engaging Benin display we began by launching a series of three discussion workshops in 2019. Artist, Leo Asemota, acted as a facilitator and five members of Liverpool’s African diasporic communities were invited to participate. The discussions were filmed and a five minute video of the process was created. A follow-up video was created around further discussions initiated in the museum stores and at a location in Toxteth.

As the redevelopment moves into its next phase, we have invited workshop participants Nasra Elliott, Saffron Francis, Otis Graham, Ashleigh Nugent, and Emeka Onuora, as well as Andrew Hardman from Belle Vue Productions, to come and reflect on their experience and involvement in the process we adopted for redeveloping the Benin display. The presentation will include a preview of the two Benin films by Belle Vue which will be followed by a panel discussion with a Q&A. The event will be facilitated by Zachary Kingdon, Curator of African Collections, World Museum.

Come and join the conversation at World Museum (Treasure House Theatre, Level 1) on Sat 9 Oct at 2-4pm. Tickets are free but booking online is essential as capacity is limited.

For more information on our Benin collection, follow the link here.