A partnership between the University of Hull and Hull Museums has led to the commission of a series of thought-provoking artworks by leading artist Deanio X, which will be displayed at Wilberforce House Museum from 28 September 2024 – 31 March 2025.
Deanio X’s project, To Heal A Butterfly, creates a visual response to the Wilberforce Institute’s research and Guardian’s Legacies of Enslavement project which is focused on understanding more about who were the enslaved people of the Sea Islands and Jamaica, linked to the Guardian newspaper.
The artworks, placed alongside and within the displays at the Museum, include a combination of improvisational portraiture, digital animation and sculptural installation. Deanio X’s work responds to the limited historic details of transatlantic slavery, where enslaved people and their descendants were denied the ability to document their own experiences. His portraits are imagined representations of enslaved people listed within the Sea Island records, and will temporarily replace historical paintings in the Museum. Their materials and style will make reference to the West African origins of their subjects, including use of African adinkra symbols.
Dr Nick Evans from the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull said: "The University of Hull is delighted to work with Deanio X and our friends at Hull Museums through this exciting project. Art has an important role in communicating the brutality of Britain's slavery past to new audiences. Deanio's artistic practice brings to life research with The Guardian led by Dr Cassandra Gooptar. Thanks too for all the help of the Wilberforce House Museum Advisory Board who guided this project throughout."
Digitally animated versions of the portraits will be displayed on screens throughout the Museum, and provide a sense of life and movement to the faceless names of peoples listed in the records.
A sculptural installation will respond to the museum’s Benin plaque, which was split in two by bomb damage in World War 2. Deanio X presents this as a powerful metaphor for British and African diasporic relations since the colonial era, an open wound in need of redress and recovery.
Deanio X, the Artist, said: “When addressed, enslavement records and displaced objects remind us of how untended wounds carved in historic trails of power and conflict extend through time and space to exacerbate legacies of division in the present. To Heal a Butterfly is in homage to the philosophical significance of West African adinkra symbols such as the Fafanto - a symbol of tenderness, gentleness, honesty, and fragility represented by a butterfly."
This commission is funded by the University of Hull and Arts Council England (ACE), as part of Hull Museums role as an ACE National Portfolio Organisation. The project is a partnership between Wilberforce House Museum, the Wilberforce Institute, and the members of the Wilberforce House Museum Advisory Board, which is comprised of local people of colour and members of the Black community.
Robin Diaper from Hull Museums said: “We’re really excited to be working with Deanio on this thought-provoking project. There are many different perspectives and ways of viewing the complicated and challenging history of slavery. Deanio’s work will provide a new way of looking at this shared history.”
Dr Cassandra Gooptar is leading a research project commissioned by The Scott Trust Limited (owners of Guardian Media Group) to uncover links between the founders of the Guardian newspaper and historical slavery. Through this work, Dr Gooptar has highlighted the names and stories of some of the enslaved people on plantations in the Sea Islands and Jamaica connected to the Guardian founders. The Scott Trust issued an apology for the Guardian's links with slavery in 2023 and has embarked on a £10m 10-year programme of restorative justice dedicated to relationship-building with descendant communities in the Sea Islands, Brazil and Jamaica.
To Heal A Butterfly by Deanio X is on display at Wilberforce House Museum, 23-25 High Street, Hull HU1 1NQ from Saturday 28 September - Monday 31 March 2025. The Museum and exhibition is free to attend. For more information, visit the Hull Museums website.