Global Curatorial Project: Unfinished Conversations oral histories and records (Ms.2022.010)

Biographical/Historical Note

The Global Curatorial Project (GCP) is a network of scholars, curators and community educators who are committed to creating innovative forms of public history about historical experiences and the contemporary legacies of racial slavery and colonialism.The GCP is defined by two closely connected projects: a traveling exhibition, In Slavery's Wake and a curatorial / archival collection and public engagement project, Unfinished Conversations. Together, these projects work to better understand how our lives and societies are continually shaped by the global wake of racial slavery and European colonialism. It is jointly led by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery (also known as the Simmons Center) at Brown University and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

The Simmons Center (formerly the CSSJ) was established in 2012 as a direct result of the Steering Committee report which was part of Brown University's reckoning with its involvement in and profiting off of racialized slavery. Over the last decade the Simmons Center has organized hundreds of public programs to understand how slavery's legacy directly impacts all of our lives, yet is "hidden in plain sight" and The Global Curatorial Project is one of their latest collaborations to that end. Partner institutions include: International Slavery Museum, Liverpool; Museu do Samba, LABHOI - Laboratório de Historia Oral e Imagem (UFF) Programa Rio, Memória e Ação; Unité de Recherche en Ingénierie Culturelle et en Anthropologie (URICA)/IFAN-UCAD, Brazil; Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium [Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika]; and Iziko Museums of South Africa.