Reframing Picton, a community-led exhibition opened at National Museum Cardiff on August 1. The exhibition includes two newly-commissioned artworks, which will become part of Wales’ national collection. The two new commissions include an immersive installation of sculpture, objects from the Amgueddfa Cymru collections, striking photographs and film. These works will help reframe the legacy of LieutenantGeneral Sir Thomas Picton (1758-1815) and give a voice to those most affected by Picton’s actions, and to those who live with the legacy today, a media release said.
Alongside the new commissions, Picton’s portrait will return to the museum’s walls in a travel frame following its removal in November 2021. The portrait by Sir Martin Archer Shee has been a part of Amgueddfa Cymru’s collections since its founding in 1907.
The decision to reinterpret the portrait was made as part of Reframing Picton – a youth-led project team involving the SSAP Youth Leadership Network and the Amgueddfa Cymru Producers. The project team worked with the museum’s curators to provide additional information and context about Picton’s legacy as Governor of Trinidad at the turn of the 19th century. This includes his brutal treatment of the people of Trinidad, including the torture of 14-year-old Luisa Calderon – information which was not part of the museum’s previous interpretation of the portrait.
(Calderon, a free "mulatto" girl, had been accused of theft. The excruciating form of torture she suffered was known as "picketing": she was hung from a scaffold by her wrist for almost an hour, her entire weight being supported on an upturned wooden peg.
Sir Thomas Picton is a controversial figure known for his brutality in his own lifetime and was known by the aliases "The Tyrant of Trinidad" and "The BloodStained Governor" due to his governance of Trinidad and his treatment of slaves.)
The project team looked at objects across Amgueddfa Cymru’s collections to reinterpret the narrative around Picton. Objects included in the interpretation included a newly-acquired transcript of the trial of Picton in London in 1806; anti-slavery medals produced to support the late 18th century anti-slavery movement in Great Britain; and a medal from the 1819 Eisteddfod, won by Walter Davies in 1819 for an ode to Picton.
[caption id="attachment_967629" align="alignnone" width="768"] Gesiye Souza-Okpofabri -[/caption]
The Reframing Picton project team said in the release:
“For generations, even up to recent years, saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ has been controversial. In the time we worked on this project we made a point to expose –not erase – history, and it was essential that we directly involved people connected to Trinidad, where Picton entrenched his reputation for barbarism during his tenure as governor.
“One of our goals for this exhibition was to create a site of conscience rather than indoctrination. To create a dialogue between museums, the governments that fund them and the communities they serve. To create healthy ways of addressing trau
