NEW POEM BY BEN OKRI TO CROWN A SEASON OF MUSIC AND TALKS AT NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY INSPIRED BY PORTRAIT OF FREED SLAVE

Writer Ben Okri has been commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to write a new poem to be incorporated into a special display of its loaned painting of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, the first portrait of a black African Muslim and freed slave.

Complemented by a season of talks and music including a performance from Akala, rapper and founder of The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company, the display Ben Okri on Ayuba Suleiman Diallo: A Dialogue Across Time will run from 20 September 2013 until 16 March 2014.

The portrait returns to the Gallery for the first time since a year-long British tour in which Okri embarked on a series of conversations to explore the painting and its impact on audiences in London, Liverpool, South Shields and Leicester. Footage of Okri’s sessions will be available to visitors as part of the innovative display which also includes the writer performing his newly commissioned poem.

Fascinated by the enigmatic story of Diallo, and his relevance today, the Booker Prize-winning author’s new poem Diallo’sTestament - which will be seen for the first time when the display opens - explores the moving and sometimes uncomfortable story of one man’s involvement on both sides of the slave trade.

William Hoare’s compelling portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo is not only the earliest known British oil portrait of a freed slave but also the first portrait in this country to honour an African subject as an individual and equal. An educated man from a family of Muslim clerics in West Africa, whose family traded cattle and other commodities including slaves, in 1731 Diallo was taken into slavery and sent to work on a tobacco plantation in America. By his own enterprise and piety, and assisted by a series of strokes of fortune, Diallo arrived in London in 1733 where he mixed with high and intellectual society, was introduced at Court and was bought out of slavery by public appeal. After nearly a year in England, he was one of the few victims of the transatlantic slave trade to return to his family in Africa.

Ben Okri says: ‘Diallo’s story is rich and complex; and the painting creates this extraordinary visual transaction which conceals and reveals so much…’

The portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo by William Hoare (1733) is on long-term loan to the National Portrait Gallery, London, from the Orientalist Museum, Doha. Since June 2012 the portrait has been touring the country, with special displays at three of the Gallery’s regional partners: Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum, South Shields Museum and Art Gallery and New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester.

Ben Okri was born in Nigeria in 1959, and now lives in England. At once a poet, a fiction writer and an essayist, he is best known for his novel The Famished Road, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1991. Star Book, a novel dealing with the subject of the slave trade and art, was published by 2007. His latest book of fiction is entitled Tales of Freedom (2009), and a collection of essays, A Time for New Dreams, was published in 2011. His latest volume of poems Wild was published in 2012.

The national tour and new Gallery display have been made possible by the generosity of Thomson Reuters, the Qatar Museums Authority and Individual Gallery Supporters. The display and its interpretation and the complementary series of talks and events are funded by the American Friends of the National Portrait Gallery, including an In Conversation between Ben Okriand Gallery Trustee, curator and historian Gus Casely-Hayford.

Dr Lucy Peltz, Curator of 18^th Century Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London, says: ‘This portrait of Diallo is beautiful, compelling and surprisingly modern. Inspired by his dialogue with audiences in Liverpool, South Shields, Leicester and London, Ben Okri’s new poem unlocks the enigma of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo.’

Ben Okri on Ayuba Suleiman Diallo: A Dialogue Across Time 20 September 2013 - 16 March 2014

Room 11, Eighteenth-Century Galleries, Second Floor, Admission free

FREE EVENTS

26 September 19.00 Akala Presents A Dialogue Across Time

Taking inspiration from the portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, Akala and full live band present an audiovisual hip-hop poetry performance.

14 November 19.00 Ben Okri in Conversation

Ben Okri in conversation with historian Gus Casely-Hayford.

5 December 19.00 Thinking About Diallo

Curator Lucy Peltz and Head of National Programmes Laura Down go behind the scenes with Diallo.

27 February 2014 19.00 British Muslims

Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray explores British Muslims and their relationship to history and heritage.

2 February, 11.00 – 16.00 Diallo in Rhyme

Explore the history of the portrait of Diallo in this interactive workshop and create your own spoken word piece / rap with The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company. There is the opportunity to perform at 16.00 in front of the portrait. For ages 14-21. To book places in advance please email youthbookings@npg.org.uk or call 020 7312 2483 from mid-November.