This art piece depicts Olaudah Equiano, an 18th-century abolitionist and former enslaved person, through a collage of everyday snack wrappers (collected from the streets of London) carefully cut into pieces of a bust.
These wrappers were discarded with such a lack of care that they never even made it into the rubbish bin. Every wrapper once contained a food with one ingredient in common- sugar.
In the 18th through 20th centuries, people from central and west Africa were enslaved by the British for work harvesting sugarcane, producing sugar for the tea of the elite.
The subject’s face is made entirely of sugar packet wrappers, representing how enslaved people were only seen for their use in harvesting crops like sugar. Much like how the wrappers were thrown away carelessly, the lives of enslaved people were permanently ruined for the purpose of making the elite’s lives sweeter.
The piece also contains letters on either side of the bust, reading “AM I NOT A MAN” and “AM I NOT A BROTHER”. This is in reference to an art piece protesting the slave trade, which reads “AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?” underneath an illustration of a black man in shackles (made by Josiah Wedgwood in 1787).
Olaudah Equiano was extremely important to the abolition of slavery. He was able to
purchase his escape from enslavement, and used his new freedom to speak for those who weren’t able to pay their way out.
Despite his work as a leading figure in the abolitionist movement in Britain, only two portraits exist of him, one not even being confirmed to be of him until much later.
This project aims to bring attention to Equiano’s impact on the world and invoke thought about the misdoings we perform as consumers, because we could all use some consideration on the history of our everyday luxuries-turned-to-necessities.
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“Was It Worth It?” is part of a larger UWM Post special project titled “Movements of Black Life: A Comparative Study in the UK.”