Unlocking 'Hew Locke: what have we here?'

Born in Edinburgh in 1959, Locke spent his formative years in Georgetown, Guyana, as the country was experiencing significant change. It achieved independence from Britain in 1966 (soon after Locke's arrival) and became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana in 1970. In this recently postcolonial country, Locke was taught about British heroes from school exercise books that still had Queen Elizabeth II's face on them.

Early in the exhibition visitors are introduced to an antique bust of Queen Victoria. She is adorned and partially obscured by layers of brass, golden chains and plastic foliage, plastic snakes and long tresses bought from a hair shop in Brixton.  

Souvenir 20 (Queen Victoria) is part of Locke's Souvenir series, in which he takes 19th-century busts of British royals and covers them in fake regalia made of things like skulls and tropical foliage, but also coins and replicas of medals from imperial conflicts. Such busts were originally mass-produced as souvenirs of the Great Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862, a celebration of empire and its rulers. When re-working these busts, Locke uses intricate embellishments to draw people in: 'I enjoy making beautiful work but I also like luring people in to think about what's beneath the skin… these national figureheads are weighed down by the burden of British history.'

A key theme in the exhibition is trade, as imperial expansion was often carried out by corporations, followed later by force of arms. These include the East India Company, founded in 1600, which eventually dominated much of the Indian subcontinent, and the Royal African Company, chartered in 1672, which formalised England's involvement in the transatlantic trade in enslaved people.  

Locke has an intense fascination with objects and the stories behind them: 'Sometimes small brown objects are easy to walk right past in a museum, but they can actually tell the most interesting stories.' One such example is the Barbados Penny.  

English and later British colonial rule on the Caribbean island of Barbados built its economy on the highly profitable farming of sugarcane, primarily cultivated by enslaved West African people, who had been captured and trafficked along the 'Middle Passage' from Africa to the Caribbean. In 1788, the plantation owner Sir Philip Gibbes privately commissioned a copper token for small transactions in Barbados, as Britain was reluctant to mint new currencies for use in colonised territories. The coins were struck in Britain and shipped to the Caribbean.  

On one side of the coin is the head of an African man, crowned with a coronet and three ostrich feathers, the heraldic device of the Prince of Wales, along with an English translation of his motto 'I serve'. As Locke notes, 'it's a sick joke, basically', emphasising Black Africans' subjection to white enslavers and the colony of Barbados's submission to the British crown. 

Locke notes that, unusually for British depictions of this time, the head of the African man 'is not a caricature, it's really well modelled, that's what makes it interesting'. He also highlights that the head is positioned where the king or queen would usually feature, giving it equivalence with a head of state.

Europe and Africa had maintained trade relationships long before British imperialism. A profusely decorated medieval English bronze jug, made in the 1390s, possibly for King Richard II, travelled long distances from England to become a prized vessel at the Asante royal court in Kumasi (present-day Ghana). How the jug made its way to Africa is unknown – it was probably traded over long distances, either as a diplomatic gift or as war booty. It might have arrived via trans-Saharan trade or more likely, via early European maritime sea journeys to the West African coast. 

The jug was later looted by British officers during the 1896 Anglo-Asante war, one of five conflicts fought between the Asante empire and the British empire and its African allies between 1824 and 1900.

In the show there are many examples of resistance, rebellion and revolution, in opposition to the violence of oppression and enslavement. Drawings of animals by the German botanical and zoological artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) and her daughter Dorothea Graff (1678–1743) were selected by Locke – partly for their beauty, but also to illustrate the conflict and violence inherent within imperial structures.  

Merian and her daughter, also an artist, made a self-funded voyage in 1699 to Suriname, then a Dutch colony, to observe and draw the local flora and fauna. The drawings were groundbreaking for their careful observation, harmonious composition and contributions to natural science.  

Merian relied heavily on the local knowledge and assistance of African and Indigenous enslaved people, who laboured under horrifying conditions on Dutch sugar plantations. Her observations of the treatment of enslaved people were expressed in her volume, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (1705), noting in her description of the peacock flower, 'the Indians, who are not treated well in the service of the Dutch, abort their children with these [seeds], not wanting them to be slaves like themselves... [Enslaved women] sometimes even commit suicide, due to the typical harsh treatment they receive'.* For Locke, there is an underlying tension in Merian and Graff's drawings of botanical and animal life that reflects the violence of these plantations.  

*Dutch translation of Maria Sibylla Merian's words with the assistance of Charlotte Wytema.

Locke is particularly interested in the way that the meaning of objects taken as spoils of war change as they move from place to place and context to context over time.

One such object is a silver-gilt dish, at the centre of which is an awisiado (Asante pendant), which would likely have belonged to an important priest in the Asantehene's (king's) court. More recently, pendants of similar form are worn by the Asantehene's soul-washers, royal attendants who routinely take part in rituals to replenish his vital powers.  

The pendant at the centre of this dish formed part of an indemnity payment the Asantehene Kofi Karikari was forced to pay to the British government following his defeat at the end of the Third Anglo-Asante War (1873–74).  

The pendant was then set in a silver-gilt dish by the Victorian jeweller Garrard & Co in 1874 with a design echoing that of the pendant. In Locke's words, 'it looks like a European thing. The original Asante object, the aesthetic of it, has been ensnared within a European design. It ignores its function completely, it's just there as a trophy. It traps it and it kills it at the same time'.

Interacting with objects throughout the exhibition are Locke's site-specific, specially commissioned works The Watchers (2024). A vital component of the exhibition, the Watchers' carnivalesque figures are embedded into its build, observing the exhibits and observing visitors from vantage points throughout the space. 

You might also catch them in the Enlightenment gallery (Room 1), spilling out of the Piranesi Vase, or entering through one of the gallery's secret doors. In dialogue with objects from the British Museum collection, these figures prompt visitors to question their relationship with these objects and the cultures they represent.  

As Locke observes, 'I'm trying to bend the past and the present together. The exhibition itself is circular – its end links to its beginning. We should look to the past and previous mistakes to become wiser.'

The Sankofa bird will be familiar to many, and gives its form to this Asante goldweight. A bird with its head turned towards its tail, it illustrates an Akan proverb about the importance of looking to the past in order to move forward and build a stronger future – a fitting symbol for the exhibition and its concerns. 

Hew Locke: what have we here? opens 17 October. Book your ticket now to save at least 20% on the standard price with our early bird offer.