SHEDDING LIGHT

SHEDDING LIGHT

The 'Shedding Light' display and earlier installation 'A Nice Cup of Tea?' are the outcome of two distinct but deeply intertwined projects, now brought together in the European Ceramics Gallery.

Both displays reveal the connected histories of colonialism, enslavement, sugar production, and ceramics.

A Nice Cup of Tea?

A Nice Cup of Tea? evolved out of a partnership between the Museum, historical consultants, students, and artists, collaborating with Windrush generation elders from Oxford’s African and Caribbean communities.

Artists Enam Gbewonyo and Lois Muddiman worked with elders to make A Nice Cup of Tea?, the original temporary installation on show in the Ceramics Gallery between May 2019 and December 2021.

Each broken piece of ceramic within the artwork carried layered family photographs, and newspaper clippings amplifying personal stories and honouring the resilience of the families represented.

The project was part of a city-wide programme of events in 2019 to commemorate the arrival of the Empire Windrush and was supported by the Arts Society in Oxford. Portraits of participants by photographer Fran Monks and oral history recordings also featured as part of the display.

Shedding Light

Shedding Light continues to honour these stories, but in the newly imagined setting of a Caribbean living room. Artist Lois Muddiman has refashioned the original artwork from A Nice Cup of Tea? into a chandelier made from the same broken pieces.

Caribbean Living Room

1950s-60s Caribbean Living Room made by Oxford-based producers in collaboration with artists, consultants and a Museum team.

A Nice Cup of Tea? chandelier

Chandelier made by Lois Muddiman out of fragments from the Ashmolean's earlier installation, 'A Nice Cup of Tea?'.

Tea set on the table

Ceramics revealing not just decoration but a show of pride, while representing a complex history.

Books and records

A selection of books and records expressing histories of endurance, resistance and oppression. Click this image for the list of books and records included.

Ceramic wall plaque

This ‘Rejoice in the Lord’ ceramic wall plaque with silver and purple lustre, c. 1830, is another of the Ashmolean's ceramic items featured in the living room display.

Shedding Light is also the outcome of a collaboration, this time bringing together a group of Oxford-based creative producers with artists, project consultants and a Museum team.

Beginning in July 2023 the development process aimed to build on the lessons learnt from ‘A Nice Cup of Tea?’ Our project consultants, supported by a wider stakeholder group, wanted to focus on intergenerational experience and expression, by bringing in young adults from Oxford’s Caribbean community to lead the creative process and identify a new installation concept.

The producers chose to showcase the history of sugar production through the creation of a 1950-60s Caribbean living room - a powerful symbol of British Caribbean heritage, resilience and identity.

After a period of discussion, debate and reflection, they selected, curated and designed items traditionally found in this type of space. Each item tells a different layer of story. We invite our visitors to 'read the room'.

With thanks to the creators of other Caribbean Living Rooms that have inspired us: Michael McMillan’s ‘Front Room’ at the Museum of the Home, London; and the Caribbean Living Room installation in Oxford created by the Afrikan Caribbean Kultral Heritage Initiative (ACKHI) in collaboration with the Museum of Oxford and BK.LUWO group.