The Acte Memorial or “Caribbean Centre of Expression and Memory of the Slave Trade and Slavery” is located on the site of the former Darboussier sugar factory in Guadeloupe. The original ambition of this memorial was to create a place dedicated to the collective memory of slavery and the slave trade, open to the contemporary world.

The permanent exhibition could have focused on the history of primary interest to Guadeloupeans and Caribbean people: that of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. But we made a different choice, that of telling the story of slavery in its entirety, from Antiquity to the present day. Using avant-garde technologies, and with great respect for the scientific and historical programme, we have developed an extremely immersive, powerful and didactic tour. Among the “scenographic surprises” of the exhibition, we invite visitors to pass through the virtual holds of a ship; they emerge dazzled by a torrent of light, like African slaves landing on the beaches of the Caribbean. The exhibition also evokes the role of the African slave traders, without whom the Europeans could not have done anything. In a free reproduction of a room in the Sorbonne we also evoke the first congress of Black Writers and Artists in 1956. Finally, the Memorial pays homage to the heroes of resistance to slavery, to the different forms of insubordination and to contemporary forms.

Opening

May 2015

Project management

Atelier Confino

Interventions

Design of the scenography & follow-up of the realization. Véronique Rozen Project Manager

Projet sponsor

General Council of Guadeloupe

Collaborators

Culturetech: Lighting design & audiovisual equipment prescription
BMC Architecture : Architect
Farid Abdelouahab: Museography

Project location

Pointe a Pitre, Guadeloupe

Area

1500 m²

Budget

€3,600,000