The Trading Faces Online Exhibition has been devised and produced by Future Histories as part of the Trading Faces Recollecting Slavery Project, which Future Histories has developed in collaboration with Talawa Theatre Company, the Victoria & Albert Museum Theatre Collections and The National Archives (A4A Programme).
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 using an interactive technological language.
The Performing Arts section includes a wide range of documents which illuminate the narratives of slavery in Black British performance, as well as issues relating to aesthetics and politics. Documents were digitised from the Victoria & 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: Black Theatre Forum, Nitro Theatre Company and Talawa Theatre Company.
The Voices section brings to the forefront the powerful legacy of black abolitionists, whose testimonies echo differences and similarities with those of contemporary migrants from China and Eastern Europe.
The Open Doors section is a public forum designed to stimulate new dialogues through the submission of documents, artistic responses and personal archive material to the site.
