London, Sugar and Slavery

Constructed with the help of community groups, this new gallery offers an unusual angle on a divisive subject. There's lots of visual art - portraits of London-based traders and the docks at work - to make up for the dearth of physical objects that reflect London's role (although Wilberforce's 'Liberty Table' takes up a prominent position), and also a very conscious attempt to play up the role of dissenting black voices, both as slaves in revolt and as abolitionists in Victorian London, to escape the usual narrative of white patricians. The gallery has been arranged so that it can also double as a performance space, and an area has also been set aside for visiting groups to construct their own 'mini-exhibitions' to cover areas that they feel the curators may have missed.