Most of my limited knowledge of British history comes from school. Every term we’d be set a new topic, be it the Tudors or World War Two, and would learn about the various victories and glories of a country whose history felt — still feels, at times — too heavy to fully comprehend. 

As a child, I never felt the need to question why there was no one who looked like me in the histories I heard about. That was until we had our first (and only) lesson on the transatlantic slave trade. I remember being shown image reconstructions of slave ships, the almost clinical bird’s eye view showing how tightly packed together each human being would have been. 

One by one, the faces of my peers turned to look at me, the only black child in the class, as if I would hold the answers to a past I was equally unaware of. I felt quietly embarrassed. This was the first time I had seen black people represented in the history books, and they were all victims, in the most horrific of ways. It was only when I went to university, studying postcolonial literature, that I began to grasp the wider context of these histories. But even now, there is still so much I don’t know. 

Calls to teach more diverse histories in British schools have been ringing for years, but thanks to the lack of guidance around teaching such complex subject matters, doing so can often be approached with trepidation. To fill in the gaps of our knowledge where our standard education has failed, black British artists have been embarking on projects and creating works that aim to cement the legacy of black people in this country, and transform people’s perception of what “British history” is. 

Comprising 103 globes, each 1.4 metres wide, The World Reimagined is an exhibition you may have already spotted in your local city, intentionally or otherwise. Painted by artists from all over the country, each globe explores the history, legacy and future of the transatlantic slave trade, from the pre-colonial era until now. Throughout October and into November, the globes have formed walkable trails in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool and Swansea, allowing passers-by to follow the exhibition and learn more about the meaning and wider histories of each. Ashley Shaw Scott Adjaye, the creative director behind the project, tells me that each globe was located strategically in order to confront the histories of certain well-known landmarks. 

“We tried to bring the globes into spaces where they could be in dialogue with that environment,” she explains. “For example, one globe that was placed outside Westminster Abbey explores the idea that when you see cherubs in renaissance paintings or churches, they are always represented as white. So, what are we saying about what it means to be a cherub, what it means to be idyllic and what that relationship to God is?”

The project partnered with Westminster Abbey, “who were really open to acknowledging the artefacts they have which have very heavy histories and haven’t been challenged” says Adjaye, “so that was the intentionality behind placing that particular globe there”. 

Each artist involved with the project has been able to let their imaginations run wild, meaning each of the globes are unique and demonstrate just how varied these histories are. For Trinidadian artist Richard Rawlins, the project was an opportunity to explore his own concepts of identity. “I’m a diaspora of a diaspora of a diaspora,” he laughs, as I chat with him over Zoom. 

“My identity is quite a complex thing because of where I was born and who my ancestors were,” he adds. “So I didn’t just want to create something that was pretty – I wanted it to represent this complex history and I wanted people to realise there is no linear way of engaging with the transatlantic slave trade.”

In a nod to his home country, the four corners of Rawlins’ globe are adorned with Moko Jumbies — the name given to traditional stilt walkers seen at carnival celebrations in Trinidad. When he was creating it, his intention was for his globe to be used as a point of reference. 

“I’ve painted book covers from Stuart Hall and CLR James onto the globe because I want people to look at the images and then go away and search and find out what these things are. I don’t spell things out in my work, I prefer people to think about the work and how it moves them.” 

Nicola Constantina, another artist who participated in the project, believes that art can serve as an impactful educational tool to delve into difficult topics. 

“Art gives people the space to think and consider things,” she tells me. “It’s a conversation starter in a lot of ways and can introduce someone to a topic that’s very deep. I think that’s the amazing thing about public art. 

Located in Liverpool’s city centre, Constantina’s globe explores the theme of abolition, and tells the fascinating story of the Palenque people in Columbia, the first “free town” in the Americas founded by those who had fled a life of slavery. 

“Slaves would cut and braid hair as an ingenious way to map the locations of the Palenque,” she explains. “The plantation owners would have no idea the hair was being used to communicate and so the slaves would escape in groups of four and would put grains of rice in their hair so that when they arrived they could grow their own crops.” 

She incorporated these elements into her design, “with a bird’s eye view of the four heads of the slaves joined together to form a map — the partings being the roads — and there are grains tucked into the image just as they would’ve been tucked into their hair”. 

It’s a story that few will be aware of, which is why it was important for Constantina to represent it in this way. 

“These are the kinds of stories that aren’t touched upon when we’re taught about the transatlantic slave trade in school,” she says. “It’s not just black history – it’s world history”.

As awareness of the extent of Britain’s involvement with the transatlantic slave trade has expanded, many of the country’s celebrated historical figures and landmarks have been called into question. This came to a head in 2020, when the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave merchant, was toppled in Bristol. Since then, cities across the country have felt the ripple effect. That same year, the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm was launched by the Greater London Authority to review statues, street names and landmarks to ensure they reflected the capital’s rich and diverse history. 

Up for review on that list was Gladstone Park, a greenspace in the borough of Brent, named after former British Prime Minister and plantation owner William Gladstone. Gladstone, who led Britain’s government until 1894, was a frequent visitor to Dollis Hill House, which at the time looked out over the vast patches of land that came to be known as Gladstone Park. Gladstone died in 1898, and left behind two distinct legacies. The first was that he served for 12 years as Prime Minister, spread over four non-consecutive terms, the most of any British prime minister. The second was that he received the largest of all compensation payments made by the Slave Compensation Commission, which was set up to manage the distribution of £20 million in compensation to slave owners following the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1833. 

Dollis Hill House went through various changes before suffering severe damage from two fires in the 1990s. Despite campaigns to save the mansion, the site was eventually demolished in 2012. The rich history of the area, eventually bulldozed into obscurity, is what inspired West London-based artist Harun Morrison to create something through which these histories could be communicated — a large horticultural public art work named The Anchor, The Drum, The Ship. Unveiled during Black History Month, the artwork was commissioned in partnership with Brent council to acknowledge the contested history of the park. 

“Shortly after the site was demolished, a site was developed that followed the old floor plan of the house, but didn’t utilise any of the original house fabric or materials,” Harun says. 

“For me, creating a horticultural work was about using a set of aesthetics already present and in close proximity to the site but turning them in on itself. Working with plants makes for a living installation. Different plants flower at different times so the work becomes a dynamic entity, just like a historical subject.” 

Antonia Culling, a planting designer, grew up in the local area and is currently writing a book on the history of Gladstone Park, so says she knew “how important this artwork was to the park’s history and also to Britain’s history”. 

Comprising three distinct shapes, the installation brings together a variety of plant species, native to Britain, the Mediterranean and Africa, and aims to create conversation around Victorian aesthetics, plantations, plantations, horticulture, colonialism, migration, botany and storytelling. 

“The ship’s planting is the darkest of the three shapes,” Antonia explains. “Set amongst all this are some prickly plants, which represent the emotions that the process of investigating contested history can elicit: that from a distance all appears to be harmonious, but when looked up close, the historical truths can, in fact, be painful and uncomfortable to deal with.” 

While the installation hopes to bring fresh awareness as to the history of the greenspace, calls to change the name of the park haven’t completely dissolved, which Harun understands. “A new artwork and renaming the park are two separate activities and not interchangeable,” he insists.

But for Antonia, changing the name of the park would mean that the reason for doing so in the first place would erode over time. “This installation will not only literally grow physically, but also in people’s minds as they encounter it in their regular visits to the park,” she says. 

“It will be a permanent reminder that history needs to be told in its entirety, without leaving out certain sectors of the community, and without venerating one section of society over another”. 

While The World Reimagined project is not a permanent one, it was founded upon the vision that its influence should be. 

This weekend, 96 of the globes will be put on display in Trafalgar Square, giving visitors the opportunity to explore the stories told by artists from all over the country. Afterwards, the globes will be auctioned off, with the money split between the artists involved in the project and various charities campaigning for racial equality and social justice.  

Adjaye and her team have also created an educational curriculum for primary and secondary schools, offering teacher training on how to navigate these topics.

“It’s completely voluntary, but we’ve had an overwhelming response, with over 200 schools engaging so far,” Adjaye says, proudly. “We were never meant to be a forever organisation, but we really feel like this history is so seismic, it’s embedded in what makes the UK what it is”. 

Given how obviously responsible the UK is for one of the most horrific legacies in history, it is peculiar that we are simultaneously so unwilling to confront it. Having grown up in Trinidad, Rawlins was surrounded by American TV and British books, but ultimately had a strong sense of his own nationality and history. 

“If you were born in the Caribbean, history is intertwined into everything you do — I was one of the last generations to do Caribbean examinations in school as well as GCEs,” he says. 

“The transatlantic slave trade is an emotional thing for some people. It’s a historical thing for others in that they consign it to the past. It feels different for me because I grew up knowing this history so I don’t find it uncomfortable.” 

It is because of this conditioned discomfort towards confronting our own history that when we attempt to do so, we go about it all wrong. The toppling of the Edward Colston statue was revered as a profound moment for racial progress in this country, but no one was able to pinpoint what that actually meant — it just made for a great front page headline. 

The sensationalism of such events often overshadows the complex histories that lay behind them. To really understand history, you have to stand back and look at it, from different distances and at different angles. And perhaps, that is why art is such an effective channel through which to be able to immerse yourself, no matter what your cultural background. 

“This is an addition to the history book,” Richard says. “I don’t want it to be something of exclusive interest to the black community — this is about the entire British community. There is no British history without me.”