This thesis examines the role played by contemporary art in commemorations
organised to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007.
It argues that, besides representing an unprecedented commemorative event
over seen by government, it was also indicative of how certain political, social
and cultural practices around ‘race’ and multiculturalism, under New Labour,
assumed a hitherto unseen level of prominence and institutional validation.
Centred on a number of key exhibitions and other commemorative material and
programmes produced for the bicentenary, the study explores themes relating
to Black Britain, inclusion politics, national remembrance and commemoration,
British history, artistic intervention, institutional critique, the role of Black artists,
public collections, contemporary African art and the ethnographic museum. The
study draws on and examines a range of discourses and practices involving
government, funding agencies, galleries, museums, journalists, researchers and
historians
