For the first time in history, the cities of Le Havre, Honfleur and Rouen will simultaneously present the exhibition “Slavery, Norman memories”. From May 10, it will retrace Normandy’s involvement in the Atlantic slave trade and slavery between the 16th and 19th centuries. The exhibition will welcome, among others, the director Gilles Elie-Dit-Cosaque, the photographer Elisa Moris Vai or the singer Philo.
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Since the Taubira law of May 21, 2001, France commemorates every May 10 “the national day of memories of the slave trade, slavery and their abolition”. And for the first time in France, three cities, Honfleur, Le Havre and Rouen, will jointly participate in this celebration from May 10 to November 10, 2023.
Recognized as being of national interest by the Ministry of Culture, the exhibition distinguishes, according to the three cities, three different chapters of Norman involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. This approach, built over three years, differentiates and retraces the history of the actors of the slavery period in Le Havre, the maritime aspect in Honfleur and the economic aspect in Rouen.
- Le Havre: Fortunes and Servitudes“
The Le Havre exhibition, presented at the Art and History Museums of Le Havre at the Hôtel Dubocage, will evoke “the role of individuals and how they became involved in a slave trade”. Through their existence, their complicity or their resistance, the city of Le Havre tends to evoke both the “trading trip” or “living conditions on farms in the West Indies”.
- Honfleur:From one land to another“
At the Eugène Boudin Museum in Honfleur, there will also be talk of the Atlantic slave trade, but from a maritime angle, where the different stages of navigation will be presented, that is to say “enslaved people, African land, the West Indies and, sometimes, Honfleur and the plantations of Santo Domingo“
- Rouen : “ The other side of prosperity“
At the Industrial Museum of the Corderie Vallois in Rouen, the focus will be on the economic system resulting from the slave trade, the funds invested by the Rouen financiers equipping the boats or the impact in the daily life of all strata of the population. Norman and enslaved people.
Whether at the national or local level, Guillaume Gaillard, general curator of the exhibition and director of Valorization of the heritage of Le Havre, recognizes that “the work of memory is too late“, at the heart of the cultural project of Le Havre, the general commissioner of the city adds that particularly in Le Havre “ we are very behind in the work of memory“. He explains that this is mainly due to the fact that the port was bombed during the Second World War, “there are not many markers left in the public space. Here, many buildings have been destroyed“.
And Guillaume Gaillard realizes this year “a lot of restitution work” with the help of historians. Thanks to more than fifteen years of collection and conservation work, the colonies installed on the Caribbean sites will be presented to the public from May 10.
The documents show that the Normans, leaving either from Le Havre or from Honfleur, used to go to sites in West Africa and also in the West Indies. Saint-Domingue was considered a site specific to the Normans. There were facilities. 75% of the sites for the sale of slaves made by the people of Le Havre take place in Santo Domingo.
Guillaume Gaillard, general commissioner of the regional exhibition, director of Valorisation of the heritage of Le Havre
And although the exhibitions deal with the Norman anchorage in slavery, they also focus their archival work on the West Indies, strongly marked between 1750 and 1848.
And for Eric Saunier, scientific curator of the regional exhibition in Le Havre, the West Indies were very quickly concerned, and this, from 1715, the year in which Louis XIV died of gangrene.
After the death of Louis XIV, the state “freed trade in the West Indies”, allowing associations of private funds to organize maritime expeditions. African kings, in a continent then in full upheaval, bought arms in exchange for slaves to go and work on plantations in the West Indies, for the production of sugar and other products for Europeans.
Éric Saunier, scientific curator of the regional exhibition, lecturer in modern history at the University of Le Havre Normandy
For several months, the overseas community will be honored through artists from all walks of life. It is on this occasion that the Martinican Gilles Elie-Dit-Cosaque, director, graphic designer, photographer and visual artist, will present his way “to question the here and the now and to confront the iconographies with History, by suggesting intimate stories“.
Also at the Maison de l’Armateur in Le Havre, Elisa Moris Vai has gathered for this exhibition the testimony of ten people, from Guadeloupe, Reunion, Guyana, Martinique or Haiti, on slavery. , in the form of a series of portraits, photos and videos.
In another register, the player of Bèlè and Gwo Ka, two instruments born during slavery, Philo, will go to Rouen on May 13 for a performance at the Musée Industriel de la Corderie Vallois where the Martiniquais will highlight “the vitality, creativity and topicality of cultures born of Creole“.
Other activities related to overseas are planned from May 10, such as a dictation in Creole, the broadcast of the film “Doubout” by West Indian director Harry Eliezer or a presentation of Caribbean plants.
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