Fri 23 Aug 2024 to Sat 23 Aug 2025
Museum and Galleries Edinburgh
Free
Disrupting the Narrative @ Museums and Galleries Edinburgh
Venues: The Writers’ Museum, Museum of Childhood, Museum of Edinburgh
Hannah Lavery (Edinburgh Makar 2021 – 2024), Jeda Pearl Lewis, Niall Moorjani and Shasta Ali
Disrupting the Narrative’ project marks an important step on Museums & Galleries Edinburgh’s anti-racism journey. They invited four Edinburgh writers of colour to research and reflect on the city’s pivotal role in transatlantic slavery and colonialism, participate in a Black History Walking Tour from Lisa Williams and respond to visits to the Royal Mile museums through a decolonising lens.
The poems created are exhibited to literally ‘disrupt’ the museum spaces and the usual interpretation in place throughout the Writers’ Museum, Museum of Childhood, and the Museum of Edinburgh. Museums & Galleries Edinburgh hope this work will inspire visitors’ thoughts about what needs to change longer term in their museums to tell a fuller and more inclusive history of Edinburgh.
About The Gift and The Reek
I’m honoured to have work alongside poets I greatly admire and respect! And, given my Black Caribbean and white Scottish ancestry, and my Windrush Generation parent coming to Scotland in the 1960s, this project was very personal for me.
My two Disrupting the Narrative poems are titled The Gift and The Reek. Both include important contextual notes, summarised below.
The Gift is a letter-poem from Cato’s dear friend (whose name we do not know) to Cato. In 1744, these two young Black men, who are enslaved and living in Edinburgh, are accused of of stealing fruit by John Kincaid. Cato’s friend is referred to as ‘Lady Stair’s Black Boy’ and Cato is hailed as ‘naturally a sharp sensible Boy and will quickly attain to any thing that you incline to put him to.’ From 1719 until 1765, The Writers’ Museum, was known as Lady Stair’s House, owned by generations of the Earls and Ladies of Stair.
The Gift asks ‘what if Cato and his friend were vitamin D deficient?’ and imagines moments of joy, friendship and a future where they ultimately gain their freedom.
Although slavery was illegal in Scotland, in the 18th Century it was fashionable for wealthy people, merchants and aristocrats in Europe to have enslaved Black children held in bondage, finely dressed, often with a metal neck collar, who were treated as chattel, like pets and dehumanised. Often accompanying owners returning to Europe from the Caribbean and Americas, or the African continent. There are paintings and writings to evidence this, including in Scotland.
The Reek takes Edinburgh’s old nickname and also flips and re-flips a phrase I kept coming across in my research… Many Scottish newspaper adverts about runaway enslaved people who were brought to Scotland, said the person was thought to be ‘lurking’ in a Scottish town or location. Edinburgh’s nickname from the 18th to 19th Century is Auld Reekie, a Scots phrase meaning ‘Old Smokey,’ from the chimney smoke clouds that hung over it. The etymology of ‘lurk’ originally meant to hide or sneak away. This evolved mean lying in wait to attack and a feeling of danger. For Black people in 18th Century Scotland, could resistance hide in plain sight? Or a ‘prowl of doctors’ lie in wait?
Many thanks to Lisa Williams, Founder of the Edinburgh Caribbean Association and Black History Walks Edinburgh, Hannah Lavery and Gillian Findlay.
Disrupting the Narrative Locations
All museums are free, donations welcome.
The Writers’ Museum celebrates the lives of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson and exhibits books, manuscripts, portraits and personal items of the authors. The building dates from 1622 and rebuilt in 1892. It is situated in Makars’ Court, off Lawnmarket.
Museum of Childhood is the world’s first ever museum dedicated to the history of childhood. Amongst the displays you will find toys, games, clothes, books and dolls, dating from the 1800s to the present day. This building is wheelchair accessible and has a lift. Content warning: at time of writing, there is a golliwog on display in the dolls section.
Museum of Edinburgh displays some of Edinburgh’s fascinating history through varied collections. The Museum is across 16th century buildings, with wheelchair access on the ground floor, where the gallery space is often used for local community co-curated exhibitions.
The People’s Story Museum is currently closed until further notice. The People’s Story gave an unique insight in to Edinburgh’s working class people from the 18th century to the late 20th century. Housed in the Canongate Tollbooth, built in 1591, the building itself had numerous incarnations including conducting burgh affairs, collecting taxes and as a jail.
The exhibition opened on the UNESCO International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (23 August). On the night of 22 to 23 August 1791, in Saint Domingue, today the Republic of Haiti, saw the beginning of the uprising that would play a crucial role in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Learn more about Haiti’s history: The Root of Haiti’s Misery: Reparations to Enslavers – The New York Times
