2023/04/26 by Tom Stern · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #African history and culture studies #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Global Maritime and Colonial Histories
paper · doi:10.1093/aesthj/ayac066
openalex publication_date 2023/04/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
In 1819, a ship called Le Rôdeur was carrying enslaved Africans from Bonny Island in modern Nigeria to Guadeloupe. The ship’s crew and its enslaved cargo were struck down with an infectious eye disease. Thirty-six of the enslaved were deemed permanently blind (thirty-nine on some accounts). As such, they were unfit for sale and worthless to the traders—indeed, worse than worthless, since they still had to eat, and to drink from the diminishing supply of water. They were murdered and thrown into the sea. The ship’s captain pretended that they had drowned themselves due to homesickness and he successfully claimed on an insurance policy. Le Rôdeur was once again trading in enslaved people, under his command, the following year. Lubaina Himid’s Rodeur1 paintings refer to these events without depicting them. The images are disquieting and rather beautiful. Most figures are not enjoying themselves, to be sure. Stuck in a spacious, enchanted vessel, they appear to be waiting. Something unfortunate may have happened, spreading an unsettled mood. But nothing portraying Le Rôdeur’s horror is in view. Eyes are sometimes prominent and disconcerting, alluding to the disease that was the catalyst for the murders. But there is also playfulness and even pleasure. A cook presents an elaborate jelly to a man playing a pipe and drum. The jelly, we know from Himid’s other work, refers, via sugar, to the trade in enslaved Africans. But the cook is smiling. In an interview, Himid has identified the men as lovers. Strips of pattern, another Himid trademark, suggest the transmitting of a message, but hardly a terrifying one. The Rodeur series forms a small but striking part of Himid’s biggest solo exhibition to date, which came to an end in October 2022. The show is a large-scale retrospective encompassing many different formats used by Himid, who won the Turner Prize in 2017.