‘LUNÄ Talk: Triangular Trade – Cotton’

LUNÄ is about the legacy of the Lunar Society of Birmingham - a group of enthusiasts and lay scholars who met on full moon nights to discover and discuss new ideas. The ‘Lunaticks’ as they were called, transformed science and changed the world. They built theories and engines, invented machines and ideas. They altered the face of their time.

Three centuries later, we invite you to reconnect with this spirit by taking your place at a platform that replicates the table on which the original Lunar Men met. This 'LUNÄ Talk’ is part of a larger research project called ‘Triangular Trade' and will concentrate on the influence of cotton production and trade in relation to the abolition of slavery and colonisation/decolonisation, both historically and as an ongoing influence on our contemporary global economy.

With: Helen Elands (art historian, independent researcher, London, UK), Wouter Elsen (Independent video- and photojournalist, co-creator of The Cotton Connection documentary, Ouagadougou, BE / BF), Dr. Patricia Fara (Historian, Eighteenth-century natural philosophy and cultural history of science, University of Cambridge, UK), Remy Jungerman (Artist, based in Amsterdam, SR / NL), Karin Lurvink (Post-doc researcher on the economic impact (direct and indirect, immediate and long-term) of 18th & 19th-century Dutch Republic transatlantic slave-based activities, University of Amsterdam, NL), Prof. Dr. Eric Vanhaute (Professor Economic and Social History and World History, Ghent University, BE), Maarten Vanden Eynde (artist and initiator of ‘Triangular Trade’) and Marjolijn Dijkman (artist and co-host LUNÄ Talk).