Jazz Slave Ships

Jazz Slave Ships was a sitespecific performance collaboration between Vancouver artist Jan Wade and Londonbased performer Vanessa Richards that involved the creation of an ancestral altar It took place in two UK ports in October 1996 on the West Coast in Whitehaven Cumbria the last English slaving port in an 18th century bonded warehouse used to store liquor and guns used in the slave trade and on the East Coast in Hull Yorkshire in Wilberforce House the birthplace of the antislavery pioneer William Wilberforce and now a museum of antislavery The production took place over a 3week period that began Sept 30 1996