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Hidden Histories Fatima Manji, Professor Corinne Fowler, Dr Nima Poovaya-Smith and Reyahn King
Event details
There are countless hidden threads running throughout British history that have long been forgotten or erased over time. Join Award-winning broadcaster Fatima Manji and author and researcher, Professor Corrine Fowler and Dr Nima Poovaya-Smith, for an in-conversation chaired by CEO of York Museums Trust, Reyahn King, as we investigate the importance of resetting the curatorial lens in a nation struggling with identity and the legacy of empire.
The death of the African-American George Floyd was followed by global protests for social justice and racial equality. Anger directed at statues memorialising controversial individuals from Britain's colonial past shone a spotlight on museums and collections, and museums expressed solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement; but what actions will follow the words for those institutions and their approaches to telling stories around Britain's imperial past?
As historians and curators take new approaches to British imperial history, the discussion will explore how Britain’s heritage sector can go further in pointing us to a more complex national history than is commonly remembered. Who are the agents of change? What part do artists, activists, curators, educators, researchers, and archivists play? And, how can we, the public, engage in shifting these narratives?
About the speakers
Fatima Manji, Professor Corinne Fowler and Dr Nima Poovaya-Smith
Fatima Manji is an award-winning broadcaster and author. Fatima Manji new book Hidden Heritage powerfully recontextualises the relationship between Britain, the people and societies of the Orient. In her journey across Britain exploring cultural landmarks, Fatima Manji searches for a richer and more honest story of a nation struggling with identity and the legacy of empire. As well as being an author Fatima also anchors for UK's Channel 4 News, where she reports on major national and international stories, and breaking stories with a global impact.
Professor Corinne Fowler is a research expert at the University of Leicester, is Director of Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted and co-authored the National Trust report on its historic houses’ colonial links. Corinne specialises in the legacies of colonialism and post-colonialism to literature, heritage and representations of British history. Her most recent book is Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England’s Colonial Connections (Peepal Tree, 2020) and she is writing a book for Penguin called The Countryside: Ten Walks Through Colonial Britain (forthcoming 2023).
Dr. Nima Poovaya-Smith OBE is a curator, art historian and writer. She was the founding director of Alchemy until 2018, previously Head of Special Projects at the National Media Museum, Bradford; Director of Arts at Arts Council Yorkshire and Senior Curator of Bradford Galleries and Museums. She developed the Transcultural Gallery, launched in 1997, and the Connect Galleries, launched in 2008, for Cartwright Hall, Bradford. Recent projects include Black Waters Heritage (2020) for Phoenix Dance Theatre. She is currently working on a book of poems, The Cat Compendium: To all Cats Big and Small. She is a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Fine Arts, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds, a Trustee of Harewood House and a patron of The Leeds Library.
Reyahn King is a former curator of British art and former Director of Art Galleries at National Museums Liverpool. Reyahn is now CEO of York Museums Trust. In 1997 Reyahn curated the first biographical exhibition about a black person at the National Portrait Gallery Ignatius Sancho: an African Man of Letters. Reyahn has continued to ensure a fuller representation of British history in museums in her work. She initiated a major exhibition on black abolitionist Olaudah Equiano in partnership with the Equiano Society. Art history also has its hidden histories which Reyahn has tried to address by showcasing unjustly overlooked British artists. Reyahn curated the first exhibition at a national museum of Aubrey Williams' work and Anwar Shemza's retrospective at Birmingham Museums. Reyahn is a former Trustee of New Art Exchange, a current trustee of Culture Perth and Kinross and a Fellow of the Museums Association