Blog
Kirsty Parsons, Exhibition Manager
This Black History Month marks 18 months since we opened our exhibition Slavery & the Bank, making this a timely moment to reflect on visitor responses to the exhibition so far.
This exhibition has elicited a strong and varied reaction from our visitors, who are interested to know how the Bank of England is dealing with this part of its, and Britain’s, past. As one of the first City institutions to publicly talk about its links to transatlantic slavery and the slave trade, the research that went into the exhibition received a lot of attention.
The exhibition aimed to present what we knew so far about the Bank’s links to transatlantic slavery and the slave trade. We created it to open a conversation about how the financial sector and economy was historically connected to Britain’s role in transatlantic slavery.
What we’ve learned from you
We’ve had meaningful and insightful conversations with visitors throughout the run of the exhibition – on social media, at events and through conversations in the gallery. One of the main ways we’ve heard from you was in the Museum itself through visitor response cards. There are five different prompts to choose from and below are some examples of the comments we’ve had for each: