Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition

In 2025, I exhibited 14 artworks in 'Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition', which was a major group and collections exhibition held at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. Curated by Victoria Avery and Wanja Kimani, the exhibition explored, "the battle to abolish the British slave trade and end enslavement between 1750 and 1850, as well as the aftermath, its legacies and the ongoing struggle for equality and social justice today" (text from the exhibition website). 'Rise Up' was conceived as a sequel to 'Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance' the 2023-4 exhibition, also at The Fitzwilliam, which had addressed 'Cambridge's role in the transatlantic slave trade'. I worked closely with the curators, the events team, and the catalogue editors and writers to support the public understanding of my practice.

CATALOGUE AND EVENTS PROGRAMME
The exhibition was accompanied by a fully illustrated, 200-page scholarly publication edited by the curators and which included an essay about my work by Niru Ratnam. The museum also hosted a public programme of events including 'Meet the Artist: Kimathi Donkor' on 1st May, 2025 at which I delivered a talk about my work in the show.

LIST OF MY ARTWORKS

'Mary Prince Dictating to Susanna Strickland' (2023, acrylic on linen, 160 x 200 cm)
'Mary Prince Dictating to Susannah Strickland' (2023, watercolour, pen and graphite on Arches paper 39.5 x 49.5 cm)
'Mary Ingham Dictating to Mary Prince' (2023, watercolour, ink and graphite on Arches paper 39.5 x 49.5 cm)
'Bacchus & Ariadne' (2004, oil on linen, 132 cm x 152 cm)

Additionally, ten 2007 works were exhibited together, forming the mixed-media assemblage 'UK Diaspora':

'I Give You'
'Cape Coast Castle Deeds'
'Karl and Adam’s Big Ideas'
'Ran Away By George'
'Drake-u-liar'
'Elizabeth Rex Lives'
'Arise Sir John'
'Sands I'
'Sands II'
'Slaving Celebs'

The catalogue caption for my painting, 'Mary Prince Dictating to Susanna Strickland' states that the work creates 'a powerful interplay of visual symbols and historical figures. Together, they emphasise the significance of personal and collective stories of emancipation'. Writing in the catalogue about 'Bacchus and Ariadne'(2004), Ratnam noted that 'it might be understood as answering back to or facing off with [Titian's] ...earlier work, reasserting the presence of an erased history in defiance of one that is well-known and taught as part of the Western artistic canon'.

LIST OF EXHIBITING ARTISTS
Other contemporary artists participating in 'Rise Up' included: Joy Labinjo, Jacqueline Bishop, Julien Sinzogan, Karen McLean, Russell Newell, Keith Piper, Joscelyn Gardner, François Cauvin, Jahnavi Inniss, Adebunmi Gbadebo, Simone Leigh, Pierre, Sylvain Augustin, Errol Ross Brewster and Alistair Nwachukwu (audio recording).

Historical artists whose work was exhibited included Thomas Gainsborough, James Northcote, Édouard-Antoine Renard, John Russell, David Martin, Numa Desroches, Richard Evans, Karl Anton Hickel, Samuel Lines, Isaac Robert Cruikshank, Adolphe Duperly, Joshua Bryant, Isaac Mendes Belisaro, Osei Bonsu, Jan van Meyer, Henry Webber, William Hackwood and various anonymous artists (partial list only).

PRESS & MEDIA
The exhibition received extensive media attention, including full reviews published in The Telegraph, The Times, The Spectator Magazine and Socialist Worker. Other media attention focussed on academic 'culture war' disputes about claims in the catalogue and exhibition texts about the historic role of trans-Atlantic slavery in financing the museum and wider University of Cambridge (to which the museum belongs).

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