To develop the groundbreaking exhibition What Have We Here at the British Museum, artist Hew Locke — celebrated for his intricate, politically charged works exploring colonialism, migration, and empire — collaborated with curators Isabel Seligman and Billie Duch Giménez and his frequent collaborator Indra Khanna to reexamine the museum’s imperial collections through a critical and imaginative lens. Over the past three decades, Locke has developed a distinct practice of transforming historical symbols of authority — coats of arms, royal portraits, military regalia — into complex visual commentaries on power, identity, and cultural memory.
Courtesy the Arist, photo by Anna Arca © Hew Lock
In What Have We Here, Locke brings this sensibility to bear on the British Museum’s collections, confronting the visual language of empire by recontextualizing familiar objects and surfacing submerged histories. Here, Isabel Seligman, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawings, discusses the collaborative process behind the exhibition, Locke’s nuanced approach to historical artifacts, and the broader questions of memory, responsibility, and power that the show compels visitors to confront.
As a creative producer in the advertising industry, What Have We Here is a masterclass in ethical imagination — showing how deep research, collaboration, and cultural context can lead to more resonant, responsible work. It’s a call to reconsider how complicated histories are leveraged in branding or in creative spaces — and at what cost.
[What Have We Here] is a call to reconsider how complicated histories are leveraged in branding or in creative spaces — and at what cost.
Emann Odufu: Hew’s work is really shaped by his moving to Guyana right at the eve of Independence, watching a nation invent itself through new flags, currencies, and anthems. How do you think that upbringing influenced his selection and interpretation of the British Museum’s imperial objects in What Have We Here?
Isabel Seligman: Moving to Guyana just before Independence sparked a deep fascination with how nations and empires construct themselves through symbols. You can see it in the seals he selected for the exhibition—those of various British colonial territories. Heraldry has always interested him; it’s central to works like Veni, Vidi, Vici (2004). The way Britain portrayed itself — as a benevolent civilizer — is right there in the imagery. The Seal for Jamaica, for instance, shows an Indigenous figure offering a dish of pineapples to the British monarch. We found that especially interesting in relation to Josiah Wedgwood’s abolitionist image, Am I Not a Man and a Brother? which shows a similarly kneeling figure. But actually, the Jamaican seal predates Wedgwood, going back to Charles II’s reign. There are others too: the Guyana seal features a ship, symbolizing trade; South Australia’s shows an aboriginal man facing Britannia. They reveal how Britain wanted to project itself. Growing up in Georgetown, Hew remembered passing the damaged Queen Victoria statue—moved after anti-colonial protests and only restored post-Independence, when it was, in his words, “defanged.” That memory of how national symbols shift is key to his practice and influenced the Souvenir series we included.
EO: Funny you mention the Queen Victoria statue — when I was in Georgetown recently, a tour guide told me that after Independence, the statue’s nose was broken in protests before the country’s Independence and moved to the Botanical Gardens, as you mentioned. When Queen Elizabeth visited in 1966, they moved the statue back to the city center, and they staged a whole distraction on the roadside so she wouldn’t notice the damage to the Queen Victoria statue! It’s hilarious and kind of brilliant and showcases the almost parent/child relationship between Britain and its colonies.
Hew Locke, Indra Khanna & Isabel Seligman in the British Museum’s Prints & Drawings Study Room 2024.
Photograph © Richard Cannon
IS: That’s such a great story!
Growing up in Georgetown, Hew remembered passing the damaged Queen Victoria statue—moved after anti-colonial protests and only restored post-Independence, when it was, in his words, “defanged.” That memory of how national symbols shift is key to his practice …
EO: In your essay for the catalogue, you talk about surfacing alternate histories — stories buried under official narratives. How did you, Hew, and Indra approach that through object pairings and juxtapositions?
IS: Hew’s knowledge of the collection runs deep—he’s been coming here since his days as a student in the ’80s, spending whole days drawing pieces like the Benin Bronzes. So he came to this project with a strong wishlist, and from there, Indra, Hew, and I built a broader brief that spoke to his practice and the show’s themes. We collaborated with about 25 different curators, using the museum’s database creatively to avoid narrowing our scope too soon. At first, we were ambitious — thinking about empire from ancient Assyria to today — but we eventually focused specifically on Britain’s empire and its intersections with Africa, India, and the Caribbean. At one point, we had a list of over 300 objects – Hew joked he could have made 15 different shows! We wanted familiar objects seen in new ways—like pairing the Royal African Company’s seal with glass beads traded for enslaved people, or the painting of a slaving ship by William Jackson. In that painting, a canoe transporting captives (which identifies the ship as a slaving vessel) was painted over at some point, probably after abolition in order to distance its links with the trade — an attempt to literally bury this history.
Hew Locke, British Museum Gallery Shot, 2024 © The Trustees of the British Museum
EO: I think I read about a piece of pottery that started in England and ended up in Ghana, showing early African-European connections. Can you talk about that?
IS: You’re thinking of the so-called Asante jug. It’s a medieval bronze jug that was actually made in England in the 1390s, possibly for King Richard II. Although we don’t know exactly how, at some point it ended up at the royal court of Kumasi, Ghana. A photo taken by African photographer Frederick Grant in the 1880s shows it embedded in a tree at the Royal Palace before it was looted by the British during the Anglo-Asante Wars. We still don’t know exactly how it got there—possibly through Portuguese explorers or by land via trans-Saharan trade routes. It challenges the Eurocentric idea that Africa was only ever acted upon. African countries, at this time, were powerful actors with complex diplomatic and trade relationships with Europe. We contextualized that jug alongside Portuguese cannons looted from Benin and the Benin Bronzes—again centering African power and sovereignty during that period.
EO: I love that. I’m a big history nerd and follow alternate history accounts online. Some claim the Benin Empire was as wealthy as Britain during early imperialism. I even read that when Brazil declared Independence, it was Benin’s recognition that pressured Britain and France into accepting it. It’s amazing how artists like Hew—and others like Suchitra Mattai—blend real research with speculative history to tell stories that feel even truer than official versions sometimes.
Speaking of alternate histories, I was fascinated that you included the Barbados Penny. I’ve seen it online, and some alternate historians suggest it might depict King George III as a darker skin figure with some African features. How do you, as a curator, navigate these blurred lines between fact and speculation?
IS: I think that Hew’s work engages deeply with what Saidiya Hartman calls critical fabulation—reading historical gaps imaginatively, without discarding fact. Historical archives were constructed according to particular power relationships, with inherent biases. Speculation, when responsible, can address the gaps in these archives, opening up suppressed possibilities. I hadn’t heard that theory about the Barbados Penny showing a Black George III, though I have heard discussions about Queen Charlotte’s possible African ancestry. George III is on the other side, represented as Neptune, god of the sea, but it’s interesting to think that this could be seen to represent a black or swarthy version of George IV, his son (an English version of his motto is included underneath, along with the three ostrich feathers of the Prince of Wales). But it’s really interesting because, as you say, this kind of speculative engagement opens up these new possibilities and ways of thinking about the past.
Barbados penny © The Trustees of the British Museum
Hew’s work engages deeply with what Saidiya Hartman calls critical fabulation—reading historical gaps imaginatively, without discarding fact.
EO: The Souvenir series is such a powerful gesture — turning mass-produced imperial busts into something destabilizing and unsettling. How did you approach installing those alongside 19th-century prints and memorabilia?
IS: The Souvenir sculptures are a great example of subversion. Originally, Parian ware busts and medals glorified the empire’s victories. By layering them with an almost overwhelming accumulation of symbols—coins, medals, insignia—Hew critiques and collapses that narrative. We paired them with objects from the Delhi Durbar — grand imperial pageants held in India in 1877, 1903, and 1911 to proclaim British monarchs as Emperor or Empress of India. The pairing shows how imperial symbols weren’t just about dominance abroad; they were also tools for Britain’s self-image at home.
EO: That reminds me — I saw something recently about a Royal Band playing Bob Marley songs at Buckingham Palace for King Charles’s Apple radio launch. It’s funny: Jamaica isn’t under the Crown anymore, but British identity still leans heavily on cultural elements from former colonies. Also, the fact that Bob Marley’s music was in opposition to the Empire, in a sense. It made me think about how the empire’s symbolic language, like the Delhi Durbar artifacts, still lives on.
IS: Exactly. Symbols never disappear—they’re constantly recontextualized and co-opted. That’s one of Hew’s core points.
EO: The British Museum has a history of inviting artists—Grayson Perry, Kader Attia, Edmund de Waal—to respond to the collection. How was Hew’s approach different?
IS: Compared to past interventions, Hew’s was much more collaborative. Grayson Perry, for example, created a very individual vision—he chose objects, wrote labels, and told his story. With Hew, from the beginning, the idea was a dialogue. Hew, Indra, and a whole team across the museum worked together—selecting objects, refining the narrative, and shaping the visitor experience. The gallery design also reflected that spirit: Hew’s commentary appeared on yellow sticky-note labels, conversational and personal, while the museum labels added historical context. This dual voice—the artist’s and the institution’s—acknowledged the complexity of the museum’s own imperial history without shying away from it. Hew made this clear: the museum’s very existence is entangled with the empire. It has been a humbling, educational process for the institution, and hopefully a model for future engagements.
Hew Locke, Souvenir 20 (Queen Victoria), 2024, mixed media on antique Parian ware bust.
Courtesy the Artist, photo by Anna Arca © Hew Locke
EO: That brings me to the bigger question: how does What Have We Here fit into ongoing conversations about repatriation, cultural stewardship, and colonial acquisition? Especially with objects like the Benin Bronzes and Egyptian antiquities?
I was in Egypt recently, and one tour guide pointed out that there are actually more Egyptian artifacts outside Egypt than within the country itself. That really stuck with me. You’d go to the pyramids and places these objects were supposed to be, and the tour guide would say: This is a replica, the real version is at the Met Museum in NYC.
In that context, how does What Have We Here contribute to or challenge these ongoing dialogues? And how do you, as a curator, navigate the ethical terrain of displaying such objects while working with contemporary artists like Hew?
IS: The exhibition definitely engages with those issues, not just looking to the past, but asking what ethical stewardship looks like today. From the beginning, Hew and Indra emphasized inclusivity—hoping to open up the museum to people who’ve historically felt excluded. We consulted extensively with internal teams, diaspora communities, and focus groups to approach objects with sensitivity and care. It’s crucial that artists aren’t used simply as cosmetic solutions for deeper institutional problems. Because of the sustained collaboration and Hew’s deep, authentic engagement with these themes, I think What Have We Here avoided those pitfalls. It’s part of a broader, ongoing dialogue about accountability, reparation, and reimagining what museums can and should be.
Symbols never disappear—they’re constantly recontextualized and co-opted. That’s one of Hew’s core points.
EO: Yeah, it feels like Hew’s whole career has been leading to this moment. It’s not pageantry — it’s real reckoning. And finally: The Watchers installation — a haunting procession of figures watching us — was brilliant. How did you install that within the museum?
IS: Hew wanted The Watchers to intervene not just in the gallery but in the very fabric of the museum. Inside the exhibition, the figures perched in corners and peered down from above cases—you caught them out of the corner of your eye, flipping the normal museum dynamic where viewers watch passive objects. We also installed figures in the Enlightenment Gallery—a collection deeply associated with European colonialism and imperialism. Because it’s a listed building, we couldn’t drill into floors or walls, but we got creative: one figure emerged from a secret staff entrance disguised as a bookcase; another erupted from the Piranesi Vase, itself a collage of Ancient Roman fragments, and which once belonged to a Director of the East India Company. It reinforced the themes of hidden legacies, fragmented histories, and the unfinished work of reckoning.
Hew Locke, The Watchers at the British Museum 2024. Photographs © Richard Cannon
EO: And the exhibition closes on the Sankofa bird—a symbol of returning to the past to build the future. Why was that important?
IS: Ending on the Sankofa bird brings the whole journey full circle. It’s a reminder that reckoning with the past isn’t about nostalgia—it’s about responsibility, healing, and imagining better futures. Print culture plays a huge role in continuing these conversations—whether it’s someone reading the catalogue, engaging with interviews like this one, or encountering the work online. We had young people write blog posts reflecting on the exhibition—offering insights into the objects I hadn’t previously considered. That’s the ripple effect we hoped for: new questions, new voices, and new possibilities growing from these dialogues.
Hew made this clear: the museum’s very existence is entangled with the empire. It has been a humbling, educational process for the institution, and hopefully a model for future engagements.
Hew Locke visits the British Museum in preparation for his exhibition. Photographed on Wednesday 5th June 2024 by Richard Cannon
Emann Odufu is a curator, independent art and culture critic, filmmaker, creative producer, and writer born and raised in Newark, NJ. His writing and film work have been featured in the New York Times, Document Journal, Hyperallergic, Paper magazine and other leading publications.
Header image: Hew Locke, The Watchers at the British Museum 2024. Photograph © Richard
Cannon
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