Hew Locke – What Have We Here?
British Museum, London

I FEEL like I’m walking into one of those stolen goods storage areas in a police station when I walk into a museum. To me, museums are basically lock-ups.

No matter how much fancy language is used to try to finesse it, the basic truth is many of the “exhibits” in museums are there because some colonialist has decided to remove them from their rightful dwelling place, either to make money or to claim that the only “safe” place for them is in a museum.

Nevertheless, I love the British Museum — as a history buff I can’t help it! It is just full of all the things I want to find out more about. Much of it is the heritage that has been hidden or stolen from me.

Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke understands this and has created an extremely important exhibition that is a veritable act of resistance and liberation. Locke has liberated and helped to reintroduce seldom seen artefacts to the world.

This act helps to remind those from whom these artefacts were taken that we did indeed have a rich and vibrant history — despite this fact being almost completely ignored by the British education system.

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My mixed emotions about the institution were calmed by figures, created by Locke, positioned high above the room that he describes as “watchers,” “observing you, observing the exhibition.”

My wife Kate said she found those observers discomforting, as a white woman. But I, as a man of African descent, felt I was being watched over and that no harm would come to me while I was in the room. It was as if the images would climb down from their perches should anyone or anything attempt to harm me.

It felt as if my ancestors were watching over me.  

As far as I am concerned the stars of this magnificent show are the Taino sculptures, often referred to as “Jamaica’s Elgin Marbles.” It’s a bit of a Eurocentric measurement but I know what they mean.

The sculptures, taken from more than 100 objects from the island now known as Jamaica and stashed in the British Museum, are two incredible hardwood spirit figures — one of a birdman and the other of Boinayel the Rain Giver.

They were carved by the Taino people — an indigenous people of the island — the birthplace of my parents and an unknown number of my ancestors.

Three foot high, they were found in a cave in Carpenter’s Mountain in the Jamaican parish of Vere, now known as Manchester, in 1792, at the height of the enslavement of Africans.

The British Museum “came by” the sculptures between 1799 and 1803. There is now a whole debate about how museums acquired these objects from colonised countries and whether or not they should be returned. 

That aside, the images certainly spark a number of questions: did any of my ancestors ever set eyes on these figures? Did they know any Taino people? And if they did, how did they communicate given the many languages and cultures on the island?

The truth is that none of my ancestors are likely to have set eyes on a single Taino person as they were completely wiped out by war, famine and previously unknown illnesses after the Spanish did that thing of discovering a group of people who were never lost.

Were the sculptures hidden in the cave in a last desperate attempt to keep them out of the hands of the colonisers?

Forcing me to ask questions is, I think, what a good exhibition should do, and this is an excellent exhibition. It should not just wallow in the aesthetics of the exhibit. It should spark questions and inspire you to find out more.

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Throughout the exhibition the voice of Locke can be heard inviting us to have a conversation with one another as well as with ourselves.

The conversation is assisted throughout by yellow notes with commentary from Locke about the exhibits chosen with his partner, curator Indra Khanna, and the museum.

One of the strengths of the exhibition is that it draws from more than Locke’s own Guyanese and African heritage. It also explores the colonial legacy of India, South America and Tibet.

I always find it odd that discussions of racism, enslavement and colonialism often leave out Brazil — the place where most people of African descent were enslaved. But the absence here did not take away from what was a breathtaking experience. Exhibits include Amerindian feathered headdresses, African drums and Tibetan Buddhas and Edo sculptures.

And these are displayed alongside topographical paintings of London’s docks which display the area’s involvement in both colonialism and the enslavement of Africans.

This includes the 1663 charter from King Charles II to the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading in Africa, which was owned by the King’s brother James, the Duke of York. The Duke of York was the boss of the notorious slaver Edward Colson whose statue was unceremoniously dumped into Bristol harbour in 2020 during Black Lives Matter protests.  

I think this exhibition is a must-see for anyone interested in resistance. Exhibitions about “the black experience” have the potential to leave one cold, thinking “oh, that’s OK — another contribution to Black History Month.”

Not so with this exhibition.

I left the room thinking about resistance to enslavement and colonialism — so often portrayed as isolated incidents of rebellion rather than the sustained movements for freedom they were.

And I have no doubt though that Locke was providing us with his own form of resistance. It seems to me to be an act of resistance in itself to liberate many of the exhibits on display from their hideaways, and once again force the conversation to take place as to whether such items as these should be left in the hands of British and other former colonial rulers’ museums or returned to their original homes.

It’s certainly a question worth asking as this is an exhibition absolutely worth seeing. 

Runs until February 9 2025. For more information see: britishmuseum.org