Kingdom of this World: Triptych

Leah Gordon is a contemporary artist, best known for her black-and-white photographic prints. She relies primarily on analogue techniques, using a Rolleicord twin-lens camera from the 1960s. Her work explores systems of power and exploitation, focussing especially on Transatlantic slavery and the Industrial Revolution. She attributes her interest in these historical phenomena to growing up in Ellesmere Port, which lies between Liverpool, a former slave-trading port, and Manchester, the world’s first industrialised city. She has also worked extensively in Haiti, which she first visited as a photojournalism student in the early 1990s. At the end of the 18th century, Haiti was the site of a successful insurrection of enslaved people against French colonial rule, which ended with the establishment of an independent state under black leadership. Through her photographic work, Gordon examines the legacy of this event.

Gordon’s interest in the Haitian Revolution is reflected in ‘Kingdom of this World: Triptych’. This work takes its title from the Cuban author Alejo Carpentier’s novel of the same name, which the tells the story of Haiti before, during and after the revolution. Gordon created the piece in 2019 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the publication of Carpentier’s novel, but his text is only one of several sources referenced in this complex artwork. Setting the Haitian Revolution in dialogue with other historical events and narratives, ‘Kingdom of this World: Triptych’ offers a nuanced perspective on the intertwined histories of slavery, rebellion, abolitionism, seafaring, class struggle and industrialisation throughout the Atlantic world.

The piece comprises three photographs, which are based on late 18th- and early 19th-century prints. In a nod to her source material, Gordon had the black-and-white photographs tinted by hand, recalling the hand-colouring often applied to historic etchings and engravings. The tinting of the monochrome photographs also creates an uncanny or dreamlike quality, which accentuates Gordon’s surreal blending of allegory and reality.

The central image is entitled ‘Europe Supported by Africa and the Americas’. Gordon originally created this work as a standalone piece in 2014, before incorporating it into ‘Kingdom of this World: Triptych’ five years later. The image follows the allegorical tradition of using female figures to personify continents. It is based on one of William Blake’s illustrations for John Gabriel Stedman's ‘Narrative of a five years expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam’, published in 1796 (a copy of this text is in the Caird Library, PBD4145). Stedman was a soldier in the Dutch military. His text is a condemnatory account of the brutal oppression of enslaved people in the Dutch colony of Suriname. Though Stedman himself is thought to have favoured reform of the slave trade over outright abolition, his book was promoted by abolitionist campaigners, including William Blake, who illustrated the text. Appearing towards the conclusion of the book, Blake’s version of ‘Europe Supported by Africa and America’ (note that his title uses the singular ‘America’, while Gordon’s references ‘the Americas’ in the plural) was intended as a utopian vision of a more equitable relationship between the peoples of the three continents, leaving behind the ‘horrors and cruelties’ of enslavement. However, although intended to suggest equality, the image nevertheless privileges Europe, whose central position forces Africa and America into supporting roles. The gold bands around their upper arms evoke ideas of enslavement and subjugation.

Gordon’s version of the image calls attention to the imbalanced power dynamics in Blake’s original design. Whereas Blake depicted all three continents as youthful figures, Gordon shows Europe as an older woman, giving visual form to the terminology of ‘Old World’ and ‘New World’ which arose with the advent of Western colonialism in the late 16th century. These terms belittled indigenous peoples, suggesting that their histories were irrelevant and that their lands were virgin terrain, ripe for exploitation by European powers convinced of the greater seniority and sophistication of their own culture. Gordon’s photograph thus lays bare the presumption of European superiority that underpins Blake’s image. Yet, as the artist herself points out, her version is also subversive, since Europe’s age suggests frailty and mortality, anticipating an end to European dominance.

The two outer images of the triptych expand on the themes of exploitation and inequality. Both photographs were taken in 2019 and are based on an illustration from John Thomas Smith's ‘Vagabondiana’, published in 1816 (again, a copy of this publication is the Caird Library, PBH9916). The book is a compendium of illustrated biographies of well-known beggars, buskers and peddlers in London. Smith’s stated aim was to capture an aspect of urban life that was rapidly vanishing due to the state’s campaign to move impoverished individuals off the streets and into workhouses. The result is a unique account of people whose stories would otherwise never have been recorded.

Gordon’s photographs refer to one of the most famous images in the book, a depiction of black sailor Joseph Johnson. Johnson became a street entertainer after injury ended his career as a merchant sailor and he did not receive a pension. He was famous around London for wearing a hat adorned with a ship model. Smith’s representation of Johnson has more humanity than many printed caricatures of the time, but it nevertheless draws upon racist stereotypes. It is an important visual source for public attitudes towards black people and racial difference in Britain during the decades immediately following the passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished slavery in the British Empire.

Gordon restages Smith’s portrait in two settings with different sitters, juxtaposing Johnson’s experiences in early 19th-century London with other historical developments happening at the same time. In one photograph, a black man poses in front of the Citadelle Laferrière in Haiti. The Citadelle is a physical legacy of the Haitian Revolution, representing both the successes and failures of the rebellion. It was commissioned in the 1810s to defend Haiti against French attempts to recolonise the island, but forced labour was used in building the structure, demonstrating that, although the people of Haiti were free from slavery, they were not safe from other abuses of power.

The other photograph, meanwhile, depicts a white man at Blaenavon Ironworks in Wales. This site was responsible for producing much of the iron that underpinned the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Through this setting, Gordon highlights significant social and economic shifts in 19th-century Britain, which saw beggars like Johnson increasingly forced into factory labour or industrial work.

As a whole, ‘Kingdom of this World: Triptych’ provides a rich and multi-layered exploration of power and oppression, highlighting the complex interconnections of abolition, rebellion and industrialism.