The Accused: The Accused: Confronting Colonial Histories through Art

The Accused: Carey’s Finger is a photographic image created by the acclaimed British/Jamaican artist Vanley Burke in response to the memorialisation of the industrial hero James Watt. This work is currently on display in the exhibition 'Intended for Jamaica' at the Library of Birmingham. It provides a powerful opening image to the exhibition, which seeks to recover the history of enslavement and imperialism found in the Boulton & Watt Collection archives.

The talk will take place in the Heritage Learning Room, on the 4th Floor in the Library of Birmingham between 12.00  - 1.30 pm booking required. 

The talk will begin by focusing on how both artists have used art to recover these histories and how their separate journeys are interconnected through Birmingham, Jamaica, and the Boulton and Watt history. Tracey Thorne traced the first official sale of a Boulton & Watt steam engine in 1808 from Soho Foundry to Dalvey Sugar Plantation in St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica. This is close to a site called Duckenfield Hall Farm, where the Birmingham-based artist first discovered that Boulton and Watt supplied steam engines from Soho Foundry in Birmingham to sugar plantations in the Caribbean.

Vanley Burke was born in St Thomas in Jamaica in 1951 and moved to Handsworth, in Birmingham at the age of 14 in 1965. For more than half a century Burke has documented the lives and experiences of Caribbean diaspora communities in the UK, capturing images of everyday life and significant events such as the 1985 Handsworth uprisings.

The talk will be an opportunity to reflect on how Vanley has used art throughout his practice to address colonial histories. There will be time for questions from the audience at the end.

Participants are invited to join us in visiting the exhibition on the 3rd floor to see The Accused in the exhibition Intended for Jamaica by Tracey Thorne — the exhibition is an artist's response to the city's Boulton and Watt history.

Original archive material from the Boulton and Watt collection is currently being exhibited as part of the exhibition. Free entry.

If you have any access requirements please contact Tracey Thorne or refer to the Library of Birmingham's pages on building access.