Facing the Past: Black Lancastrians - A Portrait Exhibition by Lela Harris at Judges' Lodgings
Judges' Lodgings Museum, Lancaster is delighted to host a new exhibition looking at Black Lancastrians living in the area in the 1700s. The exhibition was officially opened by Lubaina Himid, Turner Prize winning artist.
Facing the Past: Black Lancastrians is a stunning new exhibition highlighting the lives of Black Lancastrians living in the area in the 1700s. A series of intimate portraits by artist Lela Harris depict historic individuals; Thomas Anson, Frances Elizabeth Johnson, John Chance, Isaac Rawlinson, ‘Ebo Boy’, Molly. The new artworks are shown alongside some of those who benefitted from slavery, including portraits from the museum collection by George Romney and Joseph Wright of Derby.
Lancaster was once the fourth largest slave trading port in the country, and slave ships made 125 slaving voyages from the city to West Africa. Some of the furniture and portraits on display at the museum were bought by Lancaster families involved in the slave trade and the West Indies trade in goods produced by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, such as sugar and rum. These historic Black Lancastrians lived at a time when Lancaster merchants invested in selling an estimated 30,000 enslaved Africans through the Atlantic Slave Trade.
The information on those featured in the new commissions comes from church records, runaway slave adverts and family stories. They lived at a time when Lancaster merchants invested in selling an estimated 30,000 enslaved Africans through the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Young People's exhibition
The portraits are accompanied by a young people's exhibition. Local school children have created portraits of ‘Ebo Boy’. He is a young African man who escaped from slavery in Heysham, Lancashire. Enslaved Africans were often given new names to strip them of their identity.
The children helped give ‘Ebo Boy’ a new name to reflect his African heritage and life story, Afamefuna. This means ‘my name will not be lost’ in the Igbo language.
About the artist and collaboration
Artist Lela Harris illustrated the Folio Society edition of The Colour Purple by Alice Walker in 2021 and was V&A Illustration Award – Runner Up in 2022.
Facing The Past is a collaboration between Lancaster Black History group, Judges' Lodgings Museum, The Institute For Black Atlantic Research at UCLan, Sociology at Lancaster University and local schools. It has been funded by the Art Fund, and the Association of Independent Museums and National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery Players.
