After a successful opening event last Monday night, the Peter Mackay Archive exhibition – Freedom Road – is ready and waiting for you to come and explore. Situated on the first floor of the Library, on the walls in the foyer and in the cabinets round by the Archives and Special Collections reading room, the exhibition will be open Monday-Sunday and run until 6th April 2018.
Exhibition opening event
Freedom Road tells the story of the dusty road from Bechuanaland (modern day Botswana) to Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) – the Africans who took the journey, the men who navigated the way, the land that they travelled through and the reasons why this was undertaken. The narrative is told exclusively through Peter Mackay’s photographs and his own words taken from We Have Tomorrow : Stirrings in Africa 1959-1967.
The exhibition also displays material from the publications previously discussed in this blog – from key volumes to material from ‘the making of’ and lost items imaginatively recreated from evidence in the collection. So if the likes of Tsopano, Concord and Malawi News had previously peaked your interest then come along to the exhibition and see some examples in the flesh and explore the politcal backdrop they provide for the rest of Peter Mackay’s story.
Our congratulations to the students who worked on the exhibition! It really is fantastic to see the archive material used in this way and to have parts of Peter Mackay’s story slowly uncovered. Many thanks, too, to our crowdfunders – the digitisation of the photograph albums enables us to exhibit with ease and will really help to open up access to the collection.
Our exhibition students have been busy in the archive these last few weeks, selecting their material for display. Come along to the University Library from Friday 24th November to hear more about banned magazines, dusty roads and unsung heroism.