Enfilade

From Bloomsbury:

Matthew Jones, Curating Transatlantic Slavery: Contesting Histories and Practices in the Museum (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026), 192 pages, ISBN: 978-1350444119, £85 / $115.

Following the watershed Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and the wider public awareness of the legacies of the British Empire that has followed, how have museums developed anti-racist and decolonial practices that engage more directly with slavery’s ongoing legacies?

Curating Transatlantic Slavery presents a timely intervention into this important work, examining the curating and decision-making processes that underpin the memorialization and display of Transatlantic Slave Trade histories. Questioning how contemporary curatorial practice has been shaped by wider processes of race and racialization, and how it can engage further with these issues, Matthew Jones argues that museums must be self-reflective: scrutinizing the ways in which they racialize those they collaborate with, be that artists or communities, and how their own histories are linked with historical structures of racialization.

Each chapter focuses on a distinctive aspect of contemporary museum practice in relation to colonial history and race, covering the varying approaches of museums in the UK and Europe. Museums discussed include the Tropenmuseum in the Netherlands, Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium, and in the UK: the Victoria & Albert Museum, British Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Bristol Museums, and National Maritime Museum. Driven by comparative analysis, the chapters are grouped under the following themes, representing the core issues related to engaging with the Transatlantic Slave Trade and colonial histories on a curatorial basis: institutional history and memory; collaborative curatorial practice with communities, artists and academics; affect and the communication of trauma; and finally the impact of contemporary anti-racist movements on the displaying of slavery and anti-slavery resistance. In deconstructing these processes and histories in modern museum practice, Curating Transatlantic Slavery challenges the role of museums across the world, in the formation of racial representations and provides alternative paths towards instituting anti-racist practices.

Matthew Jones is an early career researcher with a PhD from the University Sussex. He is the co-founder of the Post-Colonial Heritage Research Group and works in museums in visitor engagement.

c o n t e n t s

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Challenging History in the Contact Zone

1 | Institutional Memory and Slavery
Victoria and Albert Museum: Art, Design and Slavery
The British Museum: Racial Capitalism and the Universal Museum

2 | National Museums and Slavery
The National Portrait Gallery: Placing the Caribbean in white British History
Memory, Geography and Race in the Portrait Gallery
AfricaMuseum: Civilising Colonialism

3 | Collaborative Curating and Race
The National Maritime Museum: Questioning Practice
Bristol Museums: Frameworks of Collaboration
Representation, Racialisation, and Collaboration

4 | Challenging Racecraft
London Museum Docklands and the Economics of Whiteness
Tropenmuseum: Whiteness, Nation, and Neutrality
Subverting Racecraft

5 | Bearing Witness: Emotion and Trauma in the International Slavery Museum
The ISM and Memorialisation in 2007
The ISM Since 2007: History and Social Justice
The ISM and Affective Autonomy within Wider Museum Practice

6 | Whiteness, Abolitionism and Affect
The Wilberforce House Museum
The Legacies of Transatlantic Slavery at the Wilberforce House Museum
Whiteness and Affect

7 | Collecting Anti-Racism
Protests and Rapid Response Collecting
The Politics of Articulating Black Lives Matter
All Voices Will Be Heard: the Consultative Exhibition
The Permanent Exhibition: Who Narrates Protest?

Conclusion: A Way Forward?

Index