Sampler
Shirley Chubb: ' 'Sampler' was made after my visit to Wilberforce House in 1996. The museum focuses on the history of African slavery, one of the strands of African history addressed in the exhibition 'Hold'. Throughout the collection objects are itemised with factual restraint within a genteel setting, an acutely English response to an inhuman trade. Many items were of interest to me, but I was most attracted to the abolitionist memorabilia. I found the sampler particularly affecting. It is naive yet deeply melancholy. 'Sampler' is a direct copy of the original object, but with important changes. When I photographed the original my reflection was also captured in the glass vitrine. The layering of my own silhouette over the sampler is now woven into the new work, conveying the sense of distance yet involvement that I felt when confronting the object. The original inscription has been replaced by two dates. The date abolition came into effect and the date I visited the museum 162 years later. The decorative border has been replaced by repeated strokes depicting human involvement, an element which appears throughout my work, and in this case also referential to the "cargo" plans of numerous slave ships. The new 'Sampler' is mounted to mimic the function of the original, which according to museum records was used as a seat cover. The padded work comments on the irony of the original - describing events which literally and metaphorically supported the 'viewer' without having to be seen.
