Explore the exhibition, join one of our talks, soak up the music and visuals and enjoy tasty food and drinks. Future Legacies is an online interdisciplinary community commissioning platform focused on exploring the Black Atlantic. The aim of the platform is to foster ongoing dialogue and showcase cultural production and critique for diasporic communities, bridging the museum’s Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance exhibition (Sept 2023—Jan 2024) and the current Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition exhibition.
Join exhibition curator Victoria Avery, alongside researchers Dawnanna Kreeger and Carol Brown-Leonardi, as they share their latest findings on prominent abolitionist and writer Olaudah Equiano (c.1745 - 1797) and the two pivotal women in his life: his wife, Susannah Cullen (1762–1796), from Ely, and his daughter, Joanna Vassa (1795–1857), born in Soham, raised in Chesterton and Cambridge, and later living in London.
Discover the distinctive visual language of British-Nigerian artist Joy Labinjo as she discusses her works in Rise Up, including an important new addition to the Fitzwilliam Museum's growing contemporary art collection, An Eighteenth-Century Family (2022). Drawing inspiration from her heritage, Labinjo’s art delves into the social, cultural, and political contexts that shape her everyday life.
Join contemporary British artist Kimathi Donkor for an insightful talk on his work in Rise Up. Discover the inspiration behind his evocative creations as Donkor discusses how his art reimagines mythical, legendary, and domestic encounters from Africa and its global diasporas.
British contemporary artist Karen McLean talks about her powerful work Ar’n’t I a Woman! (2021), on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Rise Up exhibition. Rooted in historical research, McLean’s installations, sound and moving image works incorporate evocative and symbolic materials such as sugar, blue soap and hessian bags and interrogate the complex legacies of colonialism.
Focusing on the selection of his artworks on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Rise Up exhibition, British contemporary artist, critic and academic Keith Piper discusses his wider creative practice and how he uses art as a tool to engage with historical and geographical narratives as well as the legacies and social issues affecting us today.
Clarkson’s chest of objects – currently on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Rise Up exhibition – acted as a ‘travelling museum’, helping him campaign against the slave trade. In collaboration with Coleman and the Museum, late British poet Benjamin Zephaniah wrote a poem all about Clarkson titled ‘The Rebel from Wisbech’.
Explore the wildflowers of the Botanic Garden with our early morning guided walks, a special opportunity to experience the Garden before it opens to the public. Each walk highlights seasonal species, from bee orchids in the Old Pinetum to eyebright on the Ecological Mound, offering insight into their identification, ecology and distribution. You’ll also hear about their historical uses and folklore. Join us for one or more sessions and discover the rich diversity of British flora.
Explore the wildflowers of the Botanic Garden with our early morning guided walks, a special opportunity to experience the Garden before it opens to the public. Each walk highlights seasonal species, from bee orchids in the Old Pinetum to eyebright on the Ecological Mound, offering insight into their identification, ecology and distribution. You’ll also hear about their historical uses and folklore. Join us for one or more sessions and discover the rich diversity of British flora.
