Project to feature rare manuscript of 18th century song
The manuscript is the world’s oldest surviving music from Barbados and captures voices of enslaved people working in the sugar plantations.
It was deposited with Gloucestershire Archives for safekeeping in the 1970s. The document was also included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, which lists documentary heritage which has world significance, in 2017.
Funding of £29,750 has been awarded for the ‘Beating Back the Past’ project, which will include an installation made up of various features including textiles, photographs and music to go on display at Gloucester Cathedral in September. The project will also include a schools’ programme and a series of talks.
The installation will be created by Rider Shafique, a Gloucester musician of Barbadian descent, and Vanley Burke, commonly known as the godfather of black British photography. It will explore the impact of the transatlantic slave from their viewpoint, as descendants of Caribbean enslaved people.
The ‘Beating Back the Past’ project will be delivered in partnership with Voices Gloucester and associated with its long-running Threads initiative – a successful, community textiles project that provides opportunities for local people to participate and shape the direction of heritage stories and new works of art in the city.
Four local stitching groups will also explore their experiences of identity – including race, migration, and neurodiversity – with collective quilt making. ‘Beating Back the Past’ and Threads will be shown in the Cathedral 6-30 September.
You can see a copy of the manuscript, hear a version of the song and find out more information at: gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/learning-for-all/online-exhibitions/inhuman-traffic/
Phil Gibby, Area Director, South West, Arts Council England, said: “We are proud to award a National Lottery Project Grant to Gloucestershire Archives. Cultural artefacts such as this rare manuscript serve as time capsules. They help us make meaning of the past, interpret the present, and shape our collective future. Thanks to public funding, we can invest in the care and exhibition of important objects like this, for the benefit of audiences across Gloucester - an Arts Council Priority Place - and further afield."
Cllr Lynden Stowe, cabinet member at Gloucestershire County Council with responsibility for Archives, said: “We are delighted to be able to promote this important archive to wider audiences, both locally and across the world. This project will provide an opportunity for audiences to consider the impact of slavery historically and today.”