White Ground, Black Water

2 August 2026 – 1 March 2027
Opening: Saturday 1 August 2026, 5pm till late
With a DJ set by Junglehussi
Timespan, Helmsdale

White Ground, Black Water is a research-led exhibition curated by Dr Cat Dunn, examining Scotland’s role in Empire and its deep-rooted, often overlooked entanglements with the Caribbean.

The exhibition explores the complex legacies of displacement, racial capitalism and historical erasure that continue to shape both places today. It considers how Scotland’s participation in the transatlantic slave economy, plantation economies and the administration of Caribbean colonies has been marginalised within mainstream historical discourse.

Wealth generated through sugar plantations, enslavement and colonial administration flowed back into Scottish society, shaping universities, landholdings, estates, civic infrastructure and cultural institutions.

Featuring work by Dr. Alberta Whittle, Graham Fagen, Matthew Arthur Williams and Tilda Williams-Kelly, with creative writing by Harvey Dimond, the exhibition brings together video, performance, installation, photography, sculpture and writing. Across these different forms, the artists offer ways of seeing that disrupt official histories and invite more nuanced, embodied understandings of place, power and memory.

White Ground, Black Water asks how expanded historical understanding might reshape the way we think about land, belonging, identity and care today. It opens conversations about inheritance, responsibility, historical memory and repair, making space for more people to see themselves, and each other, within the story.