Unfinished Conversations Series
Unfinished Conversations is an oral history and public engagement initiative connected to the exhibition, In Slavery’s Wake. The project team filmed over 150 interviews with descendant communities in the United States, Brazil, South Africa, Senegal, Belgium, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the United Kingdom. This collection of oral histories highlights everyday people’s memories and thoughts on the histories and afterlives of racial slavery and colonialism.
Creating Unfinished Conversations
Everyday People, Global Stories
Lorna Gail Woods stands next to some of her quilts in Africatown, Alabama, United States, 2022.
Mohamed Elmi stands in front of his mosque in Liverpool, England, 2022.
Jacqueline Goegebeur is interviewed in Ghent, Belgium in 2022.
The stories of everyday, contemporary people, told in their own voices, have largely been absent from exhibitions on slavery. This project sought to fill that void. Led by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University in partnership with NMAAHC’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery, the Unfinished Conversations initiative is jointly organized with Global Curatorial Project partners and their communities.
Community members across each exhibition site were clear that they wanted to tell their stories in their own voices, despite the trauma associated with some of the stories. Together, these stories show how the daily lives and experiences of many individuals are connected by global histories of slavery, colonialism, racism, and resilience.
Community Engagement Across the Diaspora
Starting in 2019, partners consulted with local communities to develop the oral history project and identify participants. The interviews were conducted and filmed by local teams in the participants’ chosen languages. Through a model of shared stewardship, the recordings are housed in a new archive at Brown University, with Unfinished Conversations participants retaining the rights to their interviews.
My major takeaway from this project is a confirmation of the ways in which ordinary, everyday people recreate their own humanity in spite of enormous domination. And in the face of confronting things like slavery, unfreedom, colonialism, we call it resilience.
Anthony Bouges , 2024
A Past Still Present
Unfinished Conversations participants from Liverpool, England and Africatown, Alabama discuss the ways the wake of slavery and colonialism impact their lives today.
The legacy of slavery imprisons. It is a burden that we carry of pain and suffering. From it, because of it, our ancestors created strategies to maintain themselves in the world. They've invented their culture and reinvented their ways of relating. Because of this courage that they had to reinvent themselves, I can survive today knowing the horror of slavery.
Laís Rocha , 2022
Global Curatorial Project
The Unfinished Conversations interviews are part of the Global Curatorial Project archival collection at Brown University.