50 Plaques & Places will be an exhibition taking place at The Tabernacle (5th – 28th October) to coincide with Black History Month. The exhibition is curated by Gloria Daniel, the founder of TTEACH Plaques – Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved African Corrective Historical Plaques – a descendant-led initiative that campaigns for reparative interventions and permanent plaques and to review cathedrals, churches, universities, schools and memorials that falsely honour those who profited from the transportation and enslavement of African people.

50 Plaques & Places places a spotlight on 50 sites that have been tied to the transatlantic slave economy.

The exhibition is also being supported by SOAS School of Law, Gender and Media. 50 Plaques and places have been nominated by academics, artists, politicians and descendants of the enslaved and the slaveowners, in a real call to action. Some of the confirmed participants include SOAS University Professors Gina Heathcote & Vanja Hamzic, artist Jade de Monserrat, singer/songwriter/producer Dave Okumu, writer Jody Burton, Alissandra Cummins of The Barbados Museum & Historical Society and The Black South West Network

50 Plaques & Places draws together multiple voices – artists, poets and descendants of both the enslaved and enslavers. Everyday people who recognise reparative justice lies not in the hands of the ‘Gatekeepers of Britain’. The price of justice cannot and must not be exclusively determined by the heirs of the perpetrators. 50 Plaques & Places strives to claim that space, inviting its audience to demand multiple sites of conscience.

Gloria Daniel

TTEACH Plaques was created because of the continual hostile environment perpetuated on the Windrush Generation, the refusal of the British Government to fairly compensate for this 21st-century injustice and the global outrage at witnessing the 2020 brutal murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and so many more.

Founder Gloria Daniel embarked on a deeper exploration of her family history, with initial guidance from her late cousin Jon Daniel. Jon had traced their lineage all the way to their great-great-grandfather, John Isaac Daniel, who was born into slavery under the ownership of enslaver Thomas Daniel. John Isaac Daniel was a survivor of the British trafficking of over 3.5 million people. TTEACH Plaques seeks acknowledgement and atonement from the families and institutions that profited from the enslaving and trafficking of these African people and their descendants.

By our names we will KNOW you, not historians but descendants here to correct history.

Gloria Daniel

Memory is not governed by (a) statute of limitations… collective memory especially is the very warp and weft of the tapestry of history that makes up society. Unravel and jettison a thread from that history and society itself may become undone at the seams.

Wole Soyinka, The Politics of Memory: Truth, Healing, and Social Justice

50 Plaques & Places
5th – 28th October 2023 (open Tuesday to Saturday)
The Tabernacle
34-35 Powis Square
W11 2AY
tteachplaques.org