Materiality and Museum Extraction

Join us for an insightful evening exploring Bristol’s colonial past and present through the lens of two co-created projects, ‘Tales From the Bottle: Exploring the Legacy of English Glassmaking’ and ‘From Ghana to Bristol: Reimagining Reparative Justice in a Postcolonial World’.

Historian Zakiya McKenzie and scientist Kirill Vlasov have collaborated on ‘Tales From the Bottle’ — a partnership with Bristol Blue Glass and Bristol Museum & Art Gallery — to investigate the links between Bristol’s flourishing 18th- and 19th-century glass industry and the city’s central role in Atlantic enslavement and trade. Blending social history, artistic inquiry, and modern chemistry, the project uncovers new narratives of Bristol glass and its entanglement with the colonial histories of the Caribbean, Africa, and the Americas.

Interdisciplinary artists and creative researchers Iman Sultan West and Emmanuella Morsi will also share about their partnership on ‘From Ghana to Bristol: Reimagining Reparative Justice in a Postcolonial World’. Through prior consultations and 1.5-month residency in Ghana with local creatives, farmers, social enterprises and academics, they are exploring how arts, indigenous wisdom and sustainable practices can inform new approaches to addressing colonial harm. This project is an evolution of ‘A Journey Home’ which looked at the history of the taxidermy Pangolin in Bristol Museum, which was taken from Ghana in 1828. This research is informing the development of Bristol Museum’s repatriation strategy in collaboration with Iman Sultan West (A Journey Home), Emmanuella Morsi (Access As A Creative Tool, AAACT) and Dr Edson Burton – where AAACT consults on replication, sustainability, and materiality.

Access

The venue is wheelchair accessible with a lift and level access into the event areas. We will be in Waterside 2. There are accessible toilets. There is a hearing loop in the cinema. Full access details are available on the Watershed website.

Funded by Brigstow Institute’s Seedcorn, these partnerships evolved during the Personal to Planetary Fellowship programme.

‘Materiality And Museum Extraction: Bristol glass, taxidermy pangolin, and disrupting colonial silences’ is part of a wider talk programme organised by the Personal to the Planetary fellows - a group of ten activists, academics, artists and scientists who have spent ten months collaboratively researching the climate emergency. Personal to the Planetary is a joint Brigstow Institute and Cabot Institute for the Environment initiative.

Zakiya McKenzie is a historian, storyteller, writer and Caribbeanist.

Kirill Vlasov a researcher, geochemist, climate activist and communicator.

Iman Sultan West is an artist, poet, consultant and curator.

Emmanuella Morsi an artist, producer, researcher and innovator.

Thank you to our partners Bristol Blue Glass, Brigstow Institute, Cabot Institute for the Environment, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and Pangolin GH.

About this event series

The From the Personal to Planetary talk series is co-produced and co-hosted by the Brigstow Institute, Cabot Institute for the Environment, creative associates Close and Remote and our 10 Personal to Planetary Fellows. This series is running during COP30, the biggest annual conference of negotiations for the future health of our planet. Find out more about COP30 and what the University of Bristol will be doing there.

You might also be interested in the other talks in this series:

· 13 November:

· 15 November:

· 16 November:

· 19 November:

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Host or Publisher Brigstow Institute, University of Bristol