Black artists highlight how the trauma of empire still echoes in Britain

In April 1819 a French slave ship called "Le Rodeur" departed West Africa for the Caribbean. On board were 22 crew, and around 160 enslaved Africans. In the cramped conditions aboard the ship, a debilitating disease broke out, rendering all the slaves and many of the crew blind. The French captain, calculating that his human cargo was worth more as an insurance payout, ordered weights to be attached to the feet of 36 enslaved Africans, who were thrown into the Atlantic Ocean.