'890 Names' is a pop-up exhibition that I created for Lowry (Theatre and Arts Centre in Manchester). The exhibition explores what we can learn about ourselves by tracing our ancestries, focusing specifically on my discovery of an slave-owning ancestor in my Jamaican line. Through genealogical research, I found out that several of my ancestors were slave-owners and several were enslaved people: I am descended from the children of this master-slave sexual violence. This exhibition asks what meaning we can draw from complex family histories, and it highlights the emotional impact of painful discoveries.
'890 Names' featured a two-screen film installation and two tables with archival documents. One of the tables displayed a map of Scotland with the island of Boreray circled. My slave-owning ancestor was born in Boreray (North Uist, Outer Hebrides) like many generations of my family before him. This table featured information about my family's connection to the island and set the scene for where the events of the film take place. The other table displayed pages from a 1820 Slave Register from Jamaica. These documents show the names of the 890 people enslaved by my ancestor. Visitors were invited to explore the documents with the magnifying glass and share a note of where their ancestors were from.
