Visible And Invisible

Tom Balson and Joyann Boyce

Tom and Joyann volunteered to make these digital stories at The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum using archive images from ‘Images of Empire’ and Bristol’s Museum, Galleries and Archives collections. Their work was supported and facilitated by Anna Farthing. The brief was to interpret the theme of “wishing” within the context of the forthcoming bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007.

In 2002 Tom and Joyann participated in workshops to explore how drama could be used to better understand the history of slavery as part of research carried out by Anna with a group of pupils from St Thomas More school for the Understanding Slavery Initiative. Making these digital stories for Electric December builds on their experience and draws on Anna’s recent training with the Bristol Stories (www.BristolStories.org) network. The process has formed part of Anna’s practice-based PhD research (into the potential use of participatory digital audio and video drama to better understand difficult and sensitive histories in museum learning). Anna is funded by a Collaborative Doctoral Award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum and Manchester University.

The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum

The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum are working in partnership with Bristol City Council’s Museums, Galleries and Archives Service to create a major exhibition in 2007 to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. It is anticipated that this exhibition will incorporate significant and innovative digital content and will be accompanied by a wide range of activities and events with which schools, visitors and members of the local community can participate.

We would like to thank…

Andy King and Sarwat Siddiqui of Bristol’s Museums and Olly Prince, Jo Hopkins, Paul McManus and Lucy Bradley of The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum for resources; Shaun Harris of Royalty Free Music for the music; Val Balson, Anndeloris Chacun and the Moll family for support; and the Electric December team at Watershed for the opportunity.

Web links

www.antislavery.org
www.unicef.org
www.empiremuseum.co.uk
www.imagesofempire.com
www.royaltyfreemusic.com
www.understandingslavery.com
www.bristolstories.org
www.manchester.ac.uk
www.ahrc.ac.uk