Standing in this place: Diversity & Public Art
Hosted by BAME Staff Network & Women Staff Network
In a city with a reputation of an abundance of women, where can we find them in our public art?The proposed new statue represents two groups of women central to the city's historical textile industry: enslaved women of African descent who grew the vital raw cotton supplies in the Americas and white female cotton mill workers who spun the thread. Both these groups of women have been neglected in our public commemorative landscape. It's time they were 'Standing in This Place'.
Join us for a stimulating evening of learning, conversation and connection:
Hear from Dr Susanne Seymour (and Lisa Robinson?) about the development of the Global Cotton Connections collaborative work.
Watch the story of Rachel Carter’s sculpture, which has highlighted the connections of the East Midlands cotton textile industry to colonialism and enslavement.
Meet members of the Legacy Makers – the Black community group working to inform residents and visitors of the contribution of enslaved people to the prosperity of the textile industries in the East Midlands.
Discover the opportunity to join with the National Justice Museum, the Museum of Making, independent philanthropists and interested citizens, to erect this nationally important statue in the heart of Nottingham.
Enjoy some refreshments whilst networking with others helping to shape the city and challenging the under-representation of women and people of colour in public art.
This event is free and open to all, so please do share in your networks. We hope you can join us!
Get tickets by clicking the link
About our speakers
Dr Susanne Seymour is Associate Professor in the School of Geography and Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Slavery at the University of Nottingham. She has researched the colonial and enslavement connections of provincial and rural Britain and developed collaborative ways of interpreting these hidden histories in heritage sites. The Global Cotton Connections projects have been central to her work.
Rachel Carter is a sculptor, she will explain the inspiration for the design of her statue, and the untold stories of these women – our hidden heroines. “Many of my commissions are underpinned by my love of history and ancestry, and I feel honoured to be able to represent our shared and complex histories within sculpture. Looking at my own ancestry often provides inspiration for new work as I add to the long legacy of weavers, knotters and makers that stretch back over 350 years of the Midlands industrial past."
Legacy Makers - hear how their HLF funded project with Bright Ideas Nottingham encouraged local people to take part in a community history project exploring; what life was like for the residents of Darley Abbey in the nineteenth century, the village’s links to their enslaved African ancestors and connections to the wealth of Darley Abbey through the cotton trade.