“If I hadn’t been an artist, I’d be a historian,” claims celebrated Guyanese British artist Hew Locke, whose practice addresses colonial history and notions of nationhood and empire. His latest exhibition, “what have we here?” is the culmination of two years exploring the vaults of the British Museum, together with his partner and studio curator Indra Khanna. The exhibition—which focuses on Britain’s involvement in Africa, India, and the Caribbean—examines Britain’s imperial past through historical objects, each telling a different story of colonial pursuit, exploring ideas of power, dominance, and control.
By forgoing traditional display methods (e.g., grouping objects chronologically, by country of origin or material) there is no prescribed route—a sentiment clarified in the exhibition’s introductory film. Rather, there is an open-plan layout, in which objects and artworks fill the space, hanging directly from plastic cages or encased in cabinets, giving the exhibition a back-of-house feel and prompting us to consider how—and why—objects come into museums. This nonlinear narrative encourages visitors to move freely through the space, forging their own connections. Split into four areas (Sovereigns and Icons of Nationhood, Trade, Conflict, and Treasure), the exhibition brings together objects from the British Museum’s collection, loans, and Locke’s newly commissioned works, such as The Watchers, 2024: ten oversize sculptures of colorfully decorated, carnivalesque figures. They convey a sense of judgment as they watch us encounter the works, disrupting the concept of spectator and spectacle. Locke’s voice—nonacademic and no-frills—is present throughout the exhibition in the form of lo-fi yellow notes, placed alongside the conventional museum labels. These notes pose critical questions that only an institutional “outsider” could: “Although this room is full of historical items, we’re really talking about the future, aren’t we?” Through this triumphant endeavor, Locke affirms that it’s not enough to simply examine the past; we must learn from it, too.
THE WHOLE EXHIBITION is made up of little stories. The show starts with a beautiful painting—and I use that word advisedly, because technically, it’s a beautiful painting of a slave ship. It is an exuberant 1780 painting by William Jackson, depicting a vessel headed toward a wooded coastline. Once you spot the ventilation holes at the hull you realize that this ship would have carried enslaved Africans. The coastline represents West Africa. Beneath the painting is the document that King Charles II sealed to start the Royal African Company—a chief conduit of the transatlantic slave trade, which had a monopoly on British trade with West Africa. Many enslaved people had RACE (Royal African Company of England) branded onto their backs. These objects embody dark, violent histories that are not apparent at first glance. That’s the beginning of the show, because the museum, as I see it, is a construct of empire. In fact, it is the very definition of empire.
I structured the exhibition to reflect the experience of walking into a museum. When we enter a museum, we don’t necessarily move chronologically; we typically drift without any absolute direction, charting our own paths. History is very similar; it does not move linearly toward progress, but instead meanders, causing us to visit and revisit many of the same lessons. The show is designed to look like storage cabinets, which allude to back rooms and the endless stuff in the museum stores.
The exhibition is both light and dark, and I’m referring to things that are quite violent. Even the most beautiful objects on display are often connected to sinister histories. For example, the show includes a replica of a Maxim machine gun—a weapon that was essential to the creation and preservation of the British Empire. The Maxim was a killing machine. It’s a beautiful sculptural object which is also designed to destroy people, and that’s what it did. That kind of superior technology is what kept the colonized in check and under control.
There were loads of surprises for me when working on this show. For instance, coming across a drawing by Indian artists of the Royal Shamiana, or canopy, from the Delhi Durbar. The Delhi Durbar was first held by the British in 1877 to inaugurate the new Indian Empire, with Queen Victoria as its empress. This canopy was used in the third Delhi Durbar of 1911 to shield King George V (emperor of India) and Queen Mary from the sun. It was eventually repurposed to make the canopy that still sits above the throne in Buckingham Palace. This object is a palpable and overt display of how the ghost of empire lives on today.
There are also things that are so visible that they’re invisible, like the Benin Bronze of a Portuguese soldier with a musket. What doesn’t get discussed much is the obvious thing—that he’s a white Portuguese mercenary in the army of the Oba of Benin. This points to early modern connections and a period of prosperous trade between West Africa and Europe that preceded imperial relationships. The soldier figurines and West African Ashanti jug in the exhibition both came to Britain in the late 1800s as loot from colonial wars. The other thing that doesn’t get talked about is that when looting a place like Benin, the first thing that’s looted is people’s weapons. It’s important to talk about the looting of weapons, as many objects in the British Museum arrived as a result of colonial conflict. Before the mid-twentieth century, there were no international laws proscribing the looting of cultural property following armed conflict. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries there were also instances in which the British Museum would nominate a representative to collect objects on military expeditions. So that’s on view as well.
The exhibition needed to be more than just that one-note thing. There is a section on Queen Victoria, for example. As “Mother of Empire,” Victoria was godmother to children displaced or orphaned by colonial wars. The show is questioning the romanticized perception of her as a caring matriarch figure—when she was in fact the head of an empire upheld by force of arms. It also highlights resistance to colonialism. Tipu Sultan is a figure who has always fascinated me—he was mythologized even while he was still alive as one of the last people holding out against the East India Company. The objects on display highlight his resistance—thus not telling history solely from the “victor’s” side.
When I was young, one of our very close family friends became Guyana’s representative for the United Nations, and for quite a while, I thought I wanted to work for the UN, which is, at its core, about finding balance and harmony in the wake of global conflicts. And now I wonder, have I still got a remnant of that desire within myself? I’m constantly trying to find an equilibrium—a way of living with the past, a way of living with things that were truly brutal and horrendous. It’s the burden of history, you know? And that’s what this show is. That’s why there are these ten watcher figures looking down on the audience, high above the cases, commenting and pointing. What are they thinking? What would they say? They’re judging us like a kind of Greek chorus, and they’re judging me. I include my Order of the British Empire and Royal Academy medal at the end of the show to say that I am complicit to a certain extent. Even though I’m critiquing empire, I’m a part of it as well.
On a personal level, this is a really special moment. It feels as if something has shifted in the museum. I would like to think something has shifted generally in society. There was a time when the term “decolonize the museum” was just lip service, a throwaway kind of thing. I used to get really irritated about it. Now it seems people are beginning to think more seriously about the museum and the histories it embodies. It feels like a step in the right direction. We should, as a nation, and as a global society, be able to deal with that nuance.
I’d like people to look at these objects, whether in this exhibition or another, and ask: “What’s the story behind that? Is that story really true?” And to just think a bit more critically. It’s about dialogue. Let’s have a conversation.
