BORDER CROSSINGS
in association with Dugdale Centre and Exchange Theatre
present
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

‘I didn’t know that when slavery was abolished in 1833, it was the slave owners that were compensated. The biggest bailout until 2009’s bank bailout.
I didn’t know that Britain’s wealth had so much to do with empire and exploitation.
I didn’t know that Britain had never made an apology.
I didn’t know’

Slavery may have been abolished in 1833, but in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries over 2 million Indian migrant labourers were indentured to work in plantations around the world. The workers boarded ships that would take them thousands of miles from home in search of ‘a better life’, while the abolitionists, and Indian nationalists, called this a ‘new system of slavery’ and the ‘international shame of the Indian’.

The roots of our Mauritian, Asian-Caribbean, Malaysian & Asian-African communities are all buried in this history, known as THE GREAT EXPERIMENT.

As award-winning theatre-makers Border Crossings create their new play about these indentured migrations, the company of actors from Mauritius and the UK begin to feel the weight of history in their own lives and their responsibility to the past. Join them as together they question who has the right to tell a story and who has the right to be heard.

The performance takes place in the Wilberforce Room by the Sugar and Slavery Gallery, Museum of London Docklands. Part of London tour, find out more at bordercrossings.org.uk.

Please note, if booking multiple tickets you will need to make separate bookings.
There will be a free post-show discussion after the performance.

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