The Trading Faces online exhibition has been devised and produced by Future Histories. The exhibition makes use of archive documents, video and audio material to explore the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in British performing arts and society.
A wide range of documents were selected from a number of archives in order to illuminate the narratives of slavery in Black British performance, as well as issues relating to aesthetics and politics. Documents were digitised from the Victoria and Albert Museum Theatre Collections (Core Collections, Pamphlets collection, Temba Theatre Company, Black Mime Theatre Company, Alfred Fagon, Unity Theatre and Roundhouse Theatre), and from archives held and managed by Future Histories (Talawa Theatre Company, Nitro Theatre Company and Black Theatre Forum).
The online exhibition is a resource for research and analysis of material documenting not only the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in performance, but also contemporary forms of human trafficking. Thus the narratives of resistance produced by people of African descent, who were part of the 18th and 19th centuries Abolitionist movement, are juxtaposed with the voices of contemporary victims from China and Eastern Europe.