Artist traces Manchester’s links to slavery on blue cotton gown

Manchester Art Gallery exhibition features dress inspired by outfit worn by abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond

For nearly 160 years, the blue plaque has marked sites of historic importance. Now one English institution has found its own way of signifying a flagship moment while interrogating its past - a blue dress.

The new artwork, at Manchester Art Gallery, commemorates the occasion when the African American abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond made a speech on the site in 1859.