LIVERPOOL - 27 February 2007 - 450 words
Freedom! sculpture tours UK to mark 200th anniversary of abolition of slave trade
As the UK commemorates the end of the slave trade, an original sculpture has been commissioned by Christian Aid and National Museums Liverpool from a group of Haitian artists representing their continuing struggle for freedom and human rights.
The work was unveiled yesterday in Liverpool's Merseyside Maritime Museum. It will tour the country, taking in London and Bristol, before returning to Liverpool where it will remain on permanent display in the new International Slavery Museum, which opens on 23 August.
The Freedom! sculpture, made out of recycled objects such as metal car parts and raw junk found in the dangerous slums of the capital, Port-au-Prince, was created by young Haitians and sculptors Eugène, Céleur and Guyodo from Atis Rezistans in collaboration with Mario Benjamin, an internationally renowned Haitian artist who has represented his country at Biennials in Venice, São Paulo and Johannesburg.
Despite the fact that Parliament abolished the slave trade in the UK 200 years ago, global inequalities still exist today. It is no longer legal for people to be traded as commodities. But millions of people in places like Haiti, are still forced by poverty to work in unhealthy, dangerous even life-threatening conditions.
Haiti became the first black republic as a result of the first successful slave revolt. Today, however, because of unfair terms of trade and hefty international debt repayments, Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere with 82 per cent of the rural population living below the poverty line according to the UN and 70 per cent of the population is unemployed.
Unfair terms of global trade make it impossible for local farmers to compete with food imports from richer countries. Haiti is a stark example of this kind of economic injustice, which makes many thousands of people flood into the cities to find jobs. But few find work and with no source of income many succumb to the temptation to use guns as a means of survival.
To incorporate a sense of what freedom and slavery means to people in Haiti today, the artists held workshops with young people benefiting from the work of APROSIFA, an organsation supported by Christian Aid and CAFOD in Haiti set up to provide basic education, run health clinics and work towards an end to gang fighting.
Ronald Cadet, one of the young collaborators said: "People don't have chains on their arms and legs now, but people still have chains in their minds. When you have problems getting enough food, housing and education, you are not living in a free country." But, he said, working on this project made him see there was hope and 'strength in being united.
Venues for the UK tour of Freedom!
* Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool:
26 Feb 18 March
* House of Commons, London (to be confirmed): 20 March 1
April
* Stratford Circus Arts Centre, London: 3 April 19 April
* The Empire & Commonwealth Museum, Bristol: 23 April
11 June
* The Eden Project, Cornwall: 13 June 31 July
* International Slavery Museum, Liverpool: 23 August onwards.
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