Join us for an evening of film screenings, live performance, and panel discussion on the legacies of slavery and reparatory justice.
The Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies at the University of Glasgow, in collaboration with Paxton House, presents an evening of film screenings, live performance, and panel discussion emerging from Palimpsest, the celebrated 2025 exhibition at Paxton House by multidisciplinary Grenadian artist Billy Gérard Frank, and the cross-cultural educational initiative Bridging Borders: Grenada, Scotland, and England. Developed with Descendants Children’s Charity, the Caribbean Institute for Exodus Collective/EcoLiberation, and the Edinburgh Caribbean Association, this timely intergenerational project brought together pupils, artists, scholars, and Caribbean communities across Grenada, Scotland, and England to explore the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade, foster cultural exchange, and engage with growing calls for reparatory justice. Central to the initiative is the belief that descendant communities must be empowered to claim agency over their own narratives, challenge histories shaped by colonial institutions, and retell their histories through their own voices, memories, and lived experiences.
The Beniba Centre programme includes Frank’s 2022 Venice Biennale film, Palimpsest: Tales Spun From Sea and Memories, inspired by the life and writings of the eighteenth-century abolitionist Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, alongside Echoes of Waltham, a film created with children in Grenada that traces the intertwined histories of the former Waltham Estate and its connections to Paxton House and Scotland. Also featured is a film created by Descendants Children’s Charity exploring memory and historic sites in London connected to Cugoano and the abolitionist movement, as well as a live spoken-word and musical performance by Leilani and Beau Taneus-Miller, accompanied by video projections of Paxton House.
Moderated by Dr Shantel George, historian, writer, and co-director of the Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies, the panel asks what must follow historical acknowledgement and considers how memory, education, archives, and cultural institutions can contribute meaningfully to reparatory justice and descendant communities. The discussion features historian Dr Stephen Mullen; Billy Gérard Frank, Artist and filmmaker; Leilani Taneus-Miller, Haitian-Scottish writer and Scholar; Zoe Smith, journalist and founder of the Caribbean Institute for EcoLiberation; Margaret Noel, founder of Descendants; and Dr Fiona Salvesen Murrell, curator and historian at Paxton House.
The event will begin at 6:45 pm, following a reception with light food and drinks starting at 6:00 pm.
This programme is generously supported by the Merchants House of Glasgow.