Inspire. Support. Create.
Inspire. Support. Create.
Jill Sutherland at the Holburne Museum
Curatorial Fellowship 2019
Artisa's latest Curatorial Fellow, Jill Sutherland, presents an exciting redisplay following her work with the Holburne Museum. During her post, she concentrated on two objectives: to review the interpretation methods at the museum and to implement a physical change in one of the displays.
The Plantation Day Book, a little-known ledger in the collection, became the focus of her work. Ledgers like this were used in British colonies to document imports and exports for accounting purposes. This included enslaved people who were born in their possession, bought and sold, and who died on the plantation. The Plantation Day Book is missing the majority of its pages - only one page with legible content remains, itemising a delivery of candles, beef and cocoa.
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At present, the book is on display in a drawer in the Museum's Fletcher Gallery. This section of the Museum is dedicated to taste and elegance in Georgian Bath and is of stark contrast to the transactional treatment of people of colour during this period. Labelled 'Sugar and Slavery', the drawer contains only a brief summary of the production of sugar by enslaved Africans for European consumption. It is currently displayed with minimal significance to the overall narrative of the gallery, and shown less care and attention than its neighbouring objects.
Jill's research reviews what kind of stories, histories and representations we present in our museums in Britain and in the Holburne. Her process was heavily collaborative, working alongside The Barbados Museum, Barbadian-Glaswegian artist, Alberta Whittle, and students of colour - transforming it into a display that will be conducive of dialogue between people.
"Connections were made and collaboration became a driving force behind the display. I have been waiting to land that curator role in the context of connection and after this, I feel I now am that curator."
The new display has three main themes: Remembrance, rehousing the Plantation Day Book in its own case alongside a poetic epitaph by Alberta Whittle with contributions from Barbados Museum; Acceptance, presenting research that shows that the Holburne family was connected to the slave trade; and Resistance, displaying examples of black and white individuals with links to Bath and Somerset who were activists or demonstrated black agency in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.