Rum, sweat and tears – Flensburg’s colonial heritage
Special exhibition from June 11, 2017 to March 4, 2018
To mark the 100th anniversary of the sale of the Danish colonies in the Caribbean, including the people who lived there, to the United States in 2017, the Maritime Museum presented the exhibition ‘Rum, Sweat & Tears’ from 11th of June 2017 to 4th of March 2018. Curated by Imani Tafara-Ama, the exhibition seeks to break with the usual view of one’s own history and to understand the Flensburg sugar and rum trade as part of European colonialism from an African-Caribbean perspective. In preparation for the exhibition, Imani Tafari-Ama conducted a total of 131 mini-interviews with people in the US Virgin Islands, Ghana and Flensburg. The results of this field research have been incorporated into the design of the exhibition.
The exhibition represents an important point in Flensburg’s reappraisal of its colonial entanglements and has stimulated many discourses that still have an impact today. Signe Jensen’s master’s thesis analyses the reception of the exhibition in Flensburg based on the emotions and thoughts of the visitors.