Greetings exhibitophiles! It is great to be back at the keyboard after a long and unplanned hiatus from bringing you the inside scoop on great exhibits around the country! My time away has given me some great opportunities to travel all over the Midwest to see more great exhibits to tell you about.
But first…
I’ll start with a new permanent installation right here in Cincinnati, Ohio. In early October, my friends at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center unveiled its newest exhibition Invisible: Slavery Today, which is an exhibit, dedicated to exposing to all that slavery and human trafficking isn’t something that ended after the American Civil War and no longer exists.
The exhibit looks like an abandoned warehouse with many facts and figures regarding human trafficking on the boxes and crates in the exhibit. You learn that slavery still exists and that today slavery is divided into five categories – Forced Labor, Child Labor, Sex Trafficking, Bonded Labor, and Domestic Servitude. Each type of slavery is artistically represented in the beginning of the exhibit as sculptures of individuals. The exhibit goes on to define modern day slavery and discusses the four key factors that lure people into slave situations – Deception, Poverty, Naïveté, and Illiteracy.
The examples provided for each type of slavery are all heartbreaking, and powerful stories. Such as the box with a filthy mattress in a small dirty room in the middle of the exhibit that tells the story of Margo who is sold into sex slavery. The visual with the handprints on the walls and the disgusting mattress drive the story straight to your soul.
Or the story of the wait staff at the country club; serving a robust four course menu to affluent members of the club above, but the staff being held in deplorable conditions below eating rancid meat, moldy bread, and half-eaten burgers.
Is the exhibition all negative? No – Early in the exhibit you meet Kumar who is forced to carry heavy bricks on his head in a brick factory that you later learn becomes free of his bondage and is active in exposing forced labor around the world. The end of the exhibit even tells you how to become involved in how to educate, advocate, and support ending slavery everywhere for good.
IMHO (In my humble opinion)
This exhibit is gripping, heart wrenching, and powerful – which is not unlike the Lynching in America exhibit – but it is educational, eye opening, and real. Much like the lessons taught through Lynching in America, Invisible: Slavery Today brings to light something that the public-at-large needs to know about, understand, and put a stop to even as local news today talks about a woman held for 10 days against her will right here in Greater Cincinnati.
“Together, we must hold a light to every corner of the globe and help build a world in which no one is enslaved.”
– Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Credits:
I again have to thank Rhonda, Dina, Katie, and the entire crew at THE National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for making me feel welcomed as always, and special thanks to Jamie for keeping me in mind to come to the preview.
For more information:
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
Website: http://www.freedomcenter.org Twitter: @freedomcenter
Story from Hamilton, OH of woman held captive:
Special ExhiBITs 