Pratibha Parmar met Maud Sulter in the mid 1980’s when many outside the mainstream arts establishment were committed to growing a vibrant Black women’s arts movement. Through painting, photography and moving image bodies of visual narratives were generated, contesting erasure and mapping visions for a different kind of world. Parmar will talk about these foundational moments in dialogue with Sulter’s work and their reverberations today.

From its foundation, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum has been shaped by empire and slavery. This tour led by Nelson Cummins, Curator of Legacies of Slavery and Empire will explore this history in the present day Kelvingrove through a tour of some of the current galleries and displays in the museum.

This event highlights projects and initiatives actively working to redress this injustice.

Drawing from the principle that "when lions tell their story”, this session is framed around people telling their own stories, centring voices and perspectives that have been marginalised in healthcare discourse, research and policy implementation and will demonstrate how systemic racism operates and maintains inequity of outcomes.

Participants will explore ongoing decolonising and anti-racism work focused on improving care and outcomes in sickle cell, vaccine, anaesthesia and pain management, and mental health services. There will be a particular emphasis on projects combating the risks of systemic racism and racialised stigma and discrimination operating in healthcare and mental healthcare.

Join us for a painting trail in the Hunterian Art Gallery, exploring Glasgow's connections to slavery and colonialism. Guided by Hunterian Art Curator, Anne Dulau and Curator of Discomfort, Zandra Yeaman, the trail will delve into untold connections between Glasgow’s cultural and material heritage, and its imperial past.

Join internationally renowned multimedia artist Billy Gérard Frank at Paxton House for a stimulating and thought provoking in conversation event focusing on contemporary artists working with and interpreting historic collections, buildings, and historical legacies. Hear firsthand about the stories, emotions, and creative process behind Palimpsest, Frank’s powerful exhibition, and the work of Scottish-based artists interpreting Scotland’s past through poetry, paint, spoken word, and music.

Join for an informal talk and tour. Let’s look at the museum collections from the perspective of people of colour and lived experiences. This is part of the decolonising the world collections process and will offer the public the opportunity to acknowledge outdated white narratives which need corrected. The tour will inform on the reinterpretation of texts/objects. This talk & tour will ensure a dignified and much needed appreciation of Black culture in North Lanarkshire.

Join us for a tour of the Burrell Collections’ hidden Colonial Histories. Led by Nelson Cummins, the curator of Legacies of Empire and Slavery, we will explore William Burrell’s legacy as a man of empire and take a walk through the untold stories behind his collection.

The walks take participants on a historical journey through Glasgow’s mercantile past and examine the city’s connections with tobacco, slavery and the abolition movement. Tours will be led by CRER’s Amy Rich and Lucien Staddon Foster.

Join us for the first Scottish screening of To Whom Does This Belong? — an evening of film, conversation, and creativity exploring heritage, belonging, and the legacies of empire through museum collections.

The event includes a panel discussion with Sandra Shakespeare (Museum X), Caroline Deeds (Falmouth University), Carissa Chew, and J. Kelechi Ugwuanyi, presented in collaboration with The Hunterian and the Scottish Museum of Empire, Slavery, Colonialism and Migration.

This interactive session for teachers will explore displays at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum including the re-interpreted Glassford Family portrait. Find out more about Glasgow’s historic connection to the British empire and transatlantic slavery. We will also share our new classroom resource which uses museum objects to explore how this history connects to racism today.

At the time of her death from cancer in 1988, Kathleen Collins was just 46 years old, but she was already an internationally renowned playwright, a popular professor (at New York’s City College) and a successful independent filmmaker. Her second film, Losing Ground, tells the story of a marriage of two remarkable people, both at a crossroads in their lives.

Sara Rogers, a Black professor of philosophy, is embarking on an intellectual quest to understand “ecstasy” just as her painter husband Victor sets off on a more earthy exploration of joy. One of the very first fictional features by an African-American woman, Losing Ground remains a stunning and powerful work of art. Accomplished actors Seret Scott (who appeared in Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby and Ntozake Shange’s play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf), Bill Gunn (Ganja and Hess) and Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead) star.

Discover 1000 years of medical history from South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East through our heritage treasures, including books by the father of early modern medicine, Avicenna b.980–d.1037 (Abu al-Hussain Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina), who flourished during the Islamic Golden Age. Learn about the influential medics and scholars whose work impacted and inspired new developments in Western medicine.

The walks take participants on a historical journey through Glasgow’s mercantile past and examine the city’s connections with tobacco, slavery and the abolition movement. Tours will be led by CRER’s Amy Rich and Lucien Staddon Foster.

Intergenerational storytelling

‘A Whole Heap of Mix Up’ contains reflections from a life lived in the struggle by black British feminist and activist, Stella Dadzie. Stella Dadzie has been a key figure in the Black women’s movement in Britain since the 1970s. CRER are delighted to host Stella Dadzie in Glasgow for a discussion thinking about her life, her work and anti-racist activism then and now. Stella will also give a short reading from her new book.

In the years of the expanding British empire, Glasgow's Victorian theatres were places where race was constructed, contested, and reimagined. This talk will examine two forms of popular entertainment that engaged with race in ways both controversial and subversive: "man-monkey" performances and "dog and Indian" plays. Dr. Deven Parker will discuss how these highly popular forms helped to construct modern notions of race.

To celebrate Black History Month, join a roundtable discussion with Dr Rochelle Rowe, Teleica Kirkland, and Dr Désha Osborne.

Botany was central to colonial expansion and the economic logic of empire. In this talk, Dr Sourit Bhattacharya (University of Edinburgh) explores how anticolonial writers like Jamaican poet and novelist Olive Senior reimagine agriculture and tree planting as acts of resistance and life-affirmation in the context of slavery and colonialism in the Americas.

A three-stop tour of Black and Brown artists on display in Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art. This will be followed by an exploration of the building’s colonial ties to slavery and empire through a handling kit.

Trinity House is home to a treasure trove of fascinating maritime memorabilia. Today visitors can explore an eclectic mix of artworks, navigational equipment, and curiosities collected by Leith sailors throughout the centuries and from all corners of the globe. Join us for a tour of Trinity House and discover the stories that link our collections and maritime Leith with Black History.

Trinity House is home to a treasure trove of fascinating maritime memorabilia. Today visitors can explore an eclectic mix of artworks, navigational equipment, and curiosities collected by Leith sailors throughout the centuries and from all corners of the globe. Join us for a tour of Trinity House and discover the stories that link our collections and maritime Leith with Black History.

The story of the 900 Belizean lumberjacks who in 1942 left the tropical rainforests of British Honduras to fight fascism by felling trees in Scotland. Join us for a screening of Treefellers, the BAFTA nominated documentary looking at the lives of the lumberjacks. The screening will be followed by a discussion with director Sana Bilgrami and researcher Kamala Santos. From there, we will hear from Yutsil Hoyo Diaz Martinez, the grandson of treefeller, Sam Martinez, who will share stories of his grandfather. Weather permitting, we will visit the Commonwealth Foresters’ Memorial in Pollok Park, a 15 minute walk from the screening.

A screening of two original short films directed by Manu Kurewa, followed by a short Q&A. “Sunshine” explores the relationship between an African father and daughter in Scotland as they come to terms with bereavement. “Jean” is a short documentary about Jean Donnachie, a Glasgow woman who led protests against dawn raids and the deportation of asylum seeker families.

African cinema has established a strong presence on the global cinematic stage yet Sudan's film industry, with its history going as far back as 1898, has been overlooked. Over the past seven decades, Sudanese Cinema has shifted under the weight of its dynamic socio-political history - from a region that boomed with artistic and creative storytelling to a disrupted film industry with no operating cinemas. Umloda Ibrahim, a James McCune Smith scholar, shares her ongoing research and will explore the history of Sudan’s film industry from its colonial and post-independence eras, to the contemporary industry that is being rebuilt today.

Join for an informal talk and tour. Let’s look at the museum collections from the perspective of people of colour and lived experiences. This is part of the decolonising the world collections process and will offer the public the opportunity to acknowledge outdated white narratives which need corrected. The tour will inform on the reinterpretation of texts/objects. This talk & tour will ensure a dignified and much needed appreciation of Black culture in North Lanarkshire.

The Yoruba are on a Rock is the first book-length study of Africans who, arriving decades after the abolition of the British slavery trade, radically shaped the religious and cultural landscape of Grenada. Shantel George will discuss the final chapter of the book which examines intriguing individual biographies of recaptive Africans to show how they constructed alternative narratives of return, and how the individuals remained close to Africa through their awareness of indentured histories and cultural traditions.

Based on the Olivier Award-winning stage play by Bola Agbaje, first performed at The Royal Court, the warm, sparky Gone Too Far! is the feature debut of director Destiny Ekaragha and follows two estranged teenage brothers over the course of a single day as they meet for the first time, and struggle to accept each other for who they are.

When London teenager Yemi’s big brother Iku comes to live with him from Nigeria, his terrible fashion sense, broad Yoruba accent and misplaced confidence with the opposite sex threaten to destroy Yemi’s already limited street cred.

But when they’re forced to spend the day together on their Peckham estate, Yemi is forced to confront local bullies, the girl of his dreams and his own African heritage, and eventually together they learn the values of family and self-respect.

Discover 1000 years of medical history from South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East through our heritage treasures, including books by the father of early modern medicine, Avicenna b.980–d.1037 (Abu al-Hussain Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina), who flourished during the Islamic Golden Age. Learn about the influential medics and scholars whose work impacted and inspired new developments in Western medicine.

The walks take participants on a historical journey through Glasgow’s mercantile past and examine the city’s connections with tobacco, slavery and the abolition movement. Tours will be led by CRER’s Amy Rich and Lucien Staddon Foster.

From its foundation, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum has been shaped by empire and slavery. This tour led by Nelson Cummins, Curator of Legacies of Slavery and Empire will explore this history in the present day Kelvingrove through a tour of some of the current galleries and displays in the museum.