Public screening: Living Histories of Sugar
Venue
Adam House Lecture Theatre, 3 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1HTDescription
This public screening of Living Histories of Sugar will be followed by a Q&A with director and cast.
Living Histories of Sugar was an AHRC-funded performance held in October 2022 in Kingston, Greenock, and Edinburgh. It was directed by Marisa Wilson (University of Edinburgh) and co-written with Caribbean and Scottish performance artists: Marva Newton and Phillip 'Black Sage' Murray (Trinidad and Tobago); Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow and Michael 'String Bean' Nicholson (Jamaica), and Yvonne Lyon (Scotland).
Drawing inspiration from the work of historian Professor Diana Paton as well as oral history and archival material, the performance invited audiences from across the Atlantic to be immersed in the sights and sounds of historical characters: from sugar barons and refinery owners to enslaved and free people of colour, and sugar refinery workers and their wives. The play encouraged Caribbean and Scottish audiences to contest, resignify or otherwise rework the historical record, recasting the way people think about, understand and live with the transnational and unfinished nature of the sugar industry.
2.30-2.45pm: Welcome and introduction (Marisa Wilson)
2.50-3.50pm: Screening
3.50-4.30pm: Q&A with Director and cast (in person and online)
4.30-4.45pm: Concluding remarks (Hamish Kallin)
Sponsored by the Research Institute of Geography and the Lived Environment (RIGLE) and the Food Researchers in Edinburgh (FRiED)