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’.
Join us for a rereading of Carl Linnaeus’s 1732 diary of a trip through Northern Scandinavia. In the summer of 1732, the Swedish medical student Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) travelled through Northern Scandinavia. His diary of that journey has been celebrated as pioneering modern scientific and ethnographic fieldwork.
Dr Staffan Müller-Wille proposes to read it against the grain. The knowledge Linnaeus gathered was generated “in transit” at intersections of diverse communities and affected by frameworks of hospitality and hostility.
This lecture brings together historians Zhiyù Chén, Mika Hyman, Daniel Margocsy and Alexander van Dijk from the Department of History and Philosophy at the University of Cambridge to discuss how Chinese, European, Filipino and Indonesian communities pictured, preserved, mapped and discussed the landscapes of Southeast Asia during the period of rapid colonisation and globalisation between 1500-1900.
We explore the deep influence of cycles and circulations on our planet, our economies, and our everyday lives. Drawing on perspectives from ecology, history, and critical theory, Allen delves into how natural cycles—like the water, carbon, and nutrient cycles—have shaped our understanding of nature, life, and sustainability. These systems are not only crucial for planetary health but also serve as metaphors for how humans interact with the environment.
