Drinks on arrival – 7-7.30pm

Talk by Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia  – 7.30-8.15pm

Collections tour – 8.15-9.30pm 

One of this year’s Black History Month themes is ‘Before Windrush’, encouraging us to look further into UK history. With evidence that people from Africa were present in Carlisle over 2000 years ago – we’re going to be thinking about Septimius Severus – the Libyan born Roman Emperor. We can’t claim that Severus was Black, but with the excitement of the recent Roman bathhouse finds currently on display – we feel it’s an important moment to acknowledge Septimius as an important person of colour.

This event will start with an informal talk by Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia, who was commissioned by English Heritage for its Painting Our Past: The African Diaspora in England project. This saw six artists paint portraits of historic figures from the African Diaspora to be displayed at English Heritage sites connected to to each subject.

Elena will discuss her practice and approach to painting Septimius Severus to kick off our Black Memories Matter social. Learn more about Elena here.

Collections tour

After the talk, we’ll be shining a spotlight on some of the museum’s art, costume and social history collections that represent Black people we’d like to celebrate. We’re also excited to be launching a small display of objects and photographs relating to local Windrush descendants. This colourful and sentimental display will be a tribute to the Windrush generation and the valuable contributions and sacrifices they made.

We invite anyone who has an interest in art and museum collections, and how they have the power to unlock under-appreciated stories of Black and Brown people part of all of our history!

The event is free, but booking is required.