This exhibition and curatorial project presents both the global interconnectedness of Atlantic slavery and the slave trade, as well as illuminates an alternative view about the history of our global modernity. The Global Curatorial Project (GCP) is jointly led by the Simmons Center and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture.
Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice
Global Curatorial Project
This exhibition and curatorial project presents both the global interconnectedness of Atlantic slavery and the slave trade, as well as illuminates an alternative view about the history of our global modernity. Jointly led by the Simmons Center and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture.
Global Curatorial Project
This exhibition and curatorial project presents both the global interconnectedness of Atlantic slavery and the slave trade, as well as illuminates an alternative view about the history of our global modernity. Jointly led by the Simmons Center and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture.
News
Check out some of the biggest news stories about the Global Curatorial Project below and visit Global Curatorial Project News to read all the latest headlines.
“In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture prominently features Brown University research, scholarship and artifacts.
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The exhibition "In Slavery's Wake,” at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture, looks beyond the United States to tell a global story. Co-convened by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, the Global Curatorial Project (GCP) is an international network of museums that has worked together over the last decade to put together this traveling exhibition, among other initiatives.
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The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture unveiled “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World”—its first international touring exhibition—Dec. 13. Through powerful forms of artistic expressions, such as quilting, music and ironwork, the exhibition reveals healing traditions rooted in the resilience of enslaved people.
Featuring more than 190 artifacts, 250 images, interactive stations and newly commissioned artworks, “In Slavery’s Wake” offers a transformative space to honor these legacies of strength and creativity. More information is available at nmaahc.si.edu/InSlaverysWake. The exhibition is open through June 8, 2025, in the museum’s Bank of America Special Exhibitions Gallery.
The exhibition delves into key questions about freedom and its expressions across six sections. Organized by the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery and the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World” grew out of a decade-long collaboration between international curators, scholars and community members who were committed to sharing stories of slavery and colonialism in public spaces. The collective worked across geographies, cultures and languages, connecting the past and the present.
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Featuring more than 190 artifacts, 250 images, interactive stations and newly commissioned artworks, “In Slavery’s Wake” offers a transformative space to honor these legacies of strength and creativity. More information is available at nmaahc.si.edu/InSlaverysWake. The exhibition is open through June 8, 2025, in the museum’s Bank of America Special Exhibitions Gallery.
The exhibition delves into key questions about freedom and its expressions across six sections. Organized by the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery and the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World” grew out of a decade-long collaboration between international curators, scholars and community members who were committed to sharing stories of slavery and colonialism in public spaces. The collective worked across geographies, cultures and languages, connecting the past and the present.
Smithsonian Magazine
How the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Continues to Impact Modern Life
A new Smithsonian book entitled "In Slavery's Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World," co-edited by Simmons Center Director Prof. Anthony Bogues, reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism.
The book is the companion catalog to the exhibition of the same name that opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture on December 13, 2024.
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The book is the companion catalog to the exhibition of the same name that opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture on December 13, 2024.
In its first international traveling exhibition, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington is opening "In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World."
Born of 10 years of collaboration with curators from around the world, the exhibition tells a global story of slavery and colonialism and one of freedom, fought for and obtained. NMAAHC and exhibition co-convener Brown University's Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice worked with partners and community members to gather 150 oral histories that add a modern voice to the story.
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Born of 10 years of collaboration with curators from around the world, the exhibition tells a global story of slavery and colonialism and one of freedom, fought for and obtained. NMAAHC and exhibition co-convener Brown University's Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice worked with partners and community members to gather 150 oral histories that add a modern voice to the story.
A review of the book “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World,” edited by Paul Gardullo, Johanna Obenda A.M. ’19, and Anthony Bogues, written by various contributors, which is a companion to the exhibition of the same name on view at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture.
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Mission
The Global Curatorial Project (GCP) is a network of scholars, curators and community educators who are committed to creating critical new knowledges and innovative forms of public history about the historical experiences and the contemporary legacies of racial slavery and colonialism. The GCP creates exhibitions, public programming, academic workshops, and digital programs and seeks to collaborate and transform museum practice with international publics and audiences.
Partners
Spearheaded by the Simmons Center and the Center for the Study of Global Slavery at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC), the GCP has carefully developed partnerships around the world: Iziko Slave Lodge Museum, South Africa; the Royal Museum of Central Africa, Belgium; The Shackles of Memory, France; Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, Senegal; the Research Center for the Study of World Cultures, Netherlands; International Museum of Slavery, United Kingdom; and The Legacies of British Slave Ownership Project, United Kingdom.
In Slavery’s Wake—Making Black Freedom in the World
The GCP’s primary focus is to create an international exhibition in partnership with communities and a global network of museums, non-profits, and university partners focused on the history and legacies or afterlives of slavery from 2024-2028. The exhibition In Slavery’s Wake—Making Black Freedom in the World will travel to Africa, Europe and the Americas, shifting the way we think about, talk about, and represent the history of slavery, race, and globalization and its continuing relevance to our world today.
Need and Relevance
Through this project, the GCP partnership will establish long term vision of and forum for global collaboration. This forum seeks to reshape understandings and connections between slavery’s past and the present and to transform as well as decolonize museum and scholarly practice through ongoing work with scholars and communities in Africa and around the globe. It will work to forge new relationships amongst museums as well as between public institutions and their audiences in order to make museums into sites more relevant to addressing questions of repair, reckoning, reconciliation, and justice.
Past events
- Slavery and Global Public History: New Challenges, November 1–4, 2016
- Museums, Slavery, and Post-Colonialism, September 25, 2014