Global connections at heart of exhibition on slavery and freedom

In its first international traveling exhibition, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington is opening In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World.

Born of 10 years of collaboration with curators from around the world, the exhibition tells a global story of slavery and colonialism and one of freedom, fought for and obtained.

The exhibition will travel to four continents, with showings scheduled in the cities whose museums worked most closely with the NMAAHC: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; Dakar, Senegal; Liverpool, United Kingdom; and Turvuren, Belgium.

It features historical artifacts chosen to spark conversations about “freedom making,” a concept that includes the choices (whether rebellion, community-building or other activities) made by enslaved people and their descendants.

A story of resilience

While the exhibition displays shackles and other instruments of restraint used to control enslaved people, it’s not just a story of violence and exploitation, says historian and lead curator Paul Cardullo, but also one of resistance, resilience and freedom.

The artifacts include items such as musical instruments, artistic creations and political material that depict the individuality and humanity of enslaved and freed Black people.

The 190 objects, 250 images and 10 films/media interactives include items from the six participating museums as well as newly commissioned artworks. NMAAHC and exhibition co-convener Brown University worked with partners and community members to gather 150 oral histories that add a modern voice to the story. By assembling artifacts from all over the world, says Gardullo, the exhibition transmits a powerful message of the need to reckon with that history. “We’ll grow a garden of conversations around these topics … an important look at the history and the legacies of the systems of racial slavery and colonialism dating back to the 1400s,” he says.

The exhibition commissioned the artist Nyugen E. Smith to reimagine eight flags connected to anti-slavery movements around the Atlantic world. (The actual flags of that era are lost to time.) And Portland, Maine, artist Daniel Minter created an installation — which he calls a “narrative” — that spans two rooms.

Minter’s S-shaped installation sits at the center of the exhibition and offers a space for visitors to reflect on what they have seen. Formed by a wood wall covered in fabric, the installation includes collages of images along with wood carvings and actual artifacts from around the world, such as a cooking pot from Senegal and a carved wooden paddle from Suriname. The installation also incorporates sounds — humming, singing and poetic words about sharing and abundance. Hands are a recurring image: weaving, holding someone, gesturing. “I use hands as a metaphor,” Minter says, for connecting to the earth and “for recognizing that you are a free being that engages with the world.”

Another image shows feet in the water (symbolizing the ocean crossed by enslaved people and slavery’s wake as referenced in the exhibition’s title). “You are capable of creating your own ripples, your own waves that can reach across the ocean.”

Minter found joy in working with researchers, historians and archeologists on the exhibition. “They give my work a depth, and I learn from them,” he says. At the same time, he says, he is able to make a contribution to their work by “lending narrative to some of the information they share.”

“It’s the reason for doing any work — relaying stories, relaying experiences,” Minter says.

Participation encouraged

Like all NMAAHC galleries, the exhibition includes an interactive feature that allows visitors to answer questions such as “What does freedom mean to you?”

Visitors can write on supplied paper and post their thoughts on the wall or deposit them in a container to be catalogued as the exhibition travels the world. “It puts people in the driver’s seat,” Gardullo says, “adding their voice to the questions that we think are really important for people to think about.”

The free exhibition will be in Washington from December 13 until June 8, 2025. Gardullo says he most hopes it sparks a “conversation about what we have to do to care for the world and care for each other.”

The “acts of freedom” of enslaved people “are a road map for us, and I hope that people see that and talk about it and talk about it in ways that are about making change.”