2007 saw the national commemoration of the Parliamentary Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. However, planning for the bicentenary year had begun much earlier. To launch the bicentenary year, the Yorkshire and Humber Team, in collaboration with the Arts Council, Yorkshire, held an event to help broker equitable partnerships between heritage and community groups. One of the outcomes of this event was the production of a toolkit, ‘Connecting with the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade’, to help people think about and develop projects.

This was only the beginning. The bicentenary stimulated passionate debate and innovative projects, with HLF awarding over £2.3 million to Bicentennial; projects in Yorkshire and the Humber alone.

Showreel
To mark the success of these projects, HLF produced a short show reel to display the achievements of their projects and explore the notions of the legacy of these projects and the bicentenary year as a whole. The showreel was premiered at the ‘Unbound’ Legacy event that was held in May 2008, which not only to looked back at the year, but allowed people to consider how to move forward and what the legacy of the bicentenary year should be.

Click here to view the showreel (mp4 video file, 40MB)