in 1984. In its initial years, like many maritime museums, it focused largely on displays of ships, boats and other maritime ephemera – but the museum was criticised for not including reference to Transatlantic Slavery. In 1994 a specific exhibition was created – Transatlantic Slavery Against Human Dignity – although this was also subject to criticism, especially for not consulting in its creation members of the Liverpool communities with historic ties to enslaved peoples. This fed into the establishment of the International Slavery Museum in 2007, symbolic as the bicentenary of the 1807 abolition of the Slave Trade. ISM is a separate museum but was housed within the Maritime Museum building on its 3rd floor. ISM was immediately the subject of extensive local, press and academic attention, not least because of its overt political stance. The initial ISM displays did involve much more community consultation than previously at the MM, but it was recognised that this process was imperfect and the limited space available in one floor of a different museum could not do justice to the full story of Liverpool’ s involvement with transatlantic slavery. ISM has expanded since opening to include an adjacent building – the Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. Building( formerly the Albert Dock’ s historic Traffic Office) and is now a significant presence within the cultural landscape of the city. Both museums as well as NML, then, have been the subject of scrutiny and have been subject to rigorous critiques over their involvement of local communities in the design of their spaces.
4. Proposal for Double Lever Bridge Raised © Asif Khan Studio
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Observing Memories ISSUE 9