IN-PERSON: Prague – Section B

Abstract

The digital transformation of museums and heritage has created diverse new opportunities for expressions of slavery heritage and slavery memory. Beyond traditional physical exhibition spaces, the history and legacies of slavery are being explored through apps, audio tours, immersive digital installations, interactive documentaries, video narratives, and more. COVID-19 has created further demand and appetite for the digitisation of exhibition spaces. As part of a team developing an online exhibition about the legacies of slavery in Australia, we are exploring the possibilities of these digital interpretations within the context of Australia’s difficult and traumatic—though often unacknowledged—slavery pasts. Digital modes offer opportunities for new voices, narratives, and interpretive styles. However, they also intersect with colonial and racial frameworks that still underpin histories, heritage, and museology. This paper considers some of the questions and choices for curators developing a contemporary exhibition on slavery. Following a discussion of the proliferation of “slavery memory” since the latter 20th century, and the context of Australia’s own slavery heritage, memory and identity that have grown out of British colonisation, the paper examines a selection of exhibitions and especially digital representations of slavery. Paying particular attention to representations of historical and modern slavery in Australia, as well as global representations of transatlantic slavery, the paper explores tensions and considerations around narrative, framing, authorial voice and ownership, and the ways these interact with digital modes of storytelling.