In this episode of Athena Asks, host Dr Madeleine Haddon talks to Elyse Nelson (Assistant Curator in European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Met in New York) about the current show Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast, co-curated by Nelson and Wendy S. Walters.

Organised around a single object, the marble bust Why Born Enslaved! by 19th-century French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, this is the first exhibition at The Met to explore Western sculpture in relation to the histories of transatlantic slavery, colonialism and empire.

The thematic labels were written by:


What is abolition? Farah Peterson

What is representation? Fabienne Kanor

Who narrates history? Lisa Farrington

What is the legacy of the Black figure in Western art? Elizabeth Colomba