Rivers and oceans: Navigating pictorial legacies of enslavement in New Orleans and Bristol

Beauchamp-Byrd, Mora; Sobers, Shawn

Abstract

This two-part article is a comparative analysis of two late twentieth-century works of art: John T. Scott’s Ocean Song (1990), an abstract, large-scale public art sculpture in New Orleans, Louisiana in the US, and Sold Down the River (1999), a major, self-portrait-centered painting by the Bristol, UK-based artist Tony Forbes. As outlined in both sections, contemporary artists have produced works that ensure a continuing civic dialogue about, and commemoration of, site-specific histories of enslavement. In examining and placing these two works in their social, political and cultural contexts, the article highlights the role that artists may play in offering pictorial counter-narratives that question “official,” often tourist-driven, narratives that tend to romanticize and/or mollify colonial and/or imperial initiatives, including enslavement and other legacies marked by trauma.

Citation

Beauchamp-Byrd, M., & Sobers, S. (2019). Rivers and oceans: Navigating pictorial legacies of enslavement in New Orleans and Bristol. https://doi.org/10.1163/2405836X-00401009

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 18, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Feb 25, 2019
• Publication Date: Feb 28, 2019
• Deposit Date: Feb 7, 2019
• Journal: Journal of Global Slavery
• Electronic ISSN: 2405-836X
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 69-98
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/2405836X-00401009
• Keywords: slavery, slave trade, art, bristol, tony forbes, edward colston, decolonising, new orleans
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/851834
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1163/2405836X-00401009