Art Reflects City’s Slave Trade History

Lancaster’s Facing the Past project moved to Morecambe recently for the latest in a series of community workshops.

More Music, which is a member of the partnership behind the project commemorating Lancaster’s slave trade past, hosted the workshop at The Hothouse.

Funded by Arts Council England, Facing The Past aims to reflect, reveal and redress omissions in the way Lancaster has so far commemorated its role in the transatlantic slave trade. Other partners involved are Lancaster Priory, the Judges Lodgings, Lancaster Black History and arts, heritage and community organisations.

The Morecambe workshop was led by Venessa Scott, a public artist renowned for painting one of the UK’s tallest murals in Manchester and who has also appeared on the popular CBBC programme, Colours.

She demonstrated how the stories and characters of enslaved people from history could be transformed into illustrative collage artwork.

The series of community workshops was launched at Lancaster Priory and that’s also where it ended when acclaimed artist, Nayna Lad led a session to create black portraits with mixed media collage. Participants were asked to imagine the faces of enslaved Africans through layering materials and adorning the portraits with patterns and feathers.

Nayna, an experienced art and design teacher who has worked in Africa and the UK, has also been involved with the Facing The Past school workshops taking place over recent months at the Judges Lodgings which is looking a further ways to continue this work.