Museum for Mothers of Black Bodies Murdered in State Custody is an exhibition curated by the multi-award-winning poet Malika Booker.

The exhibition at Manchester Poetry Library, running from 10 April – 6 September is the most recent iteration of what the author describes as ‘an impossible experiment’. Part testament, part accounting, part cathedral, part prayer, part memorial, part legacy, part historical reckoning, the Museum aims to curate the ongoing crimes by the state (be it colonial, western, contemporary) subjected onto Black bodies.

Exhibits from the Museum have already appeared as films and poems part of Wild Seed’s Black Women’s Writing Retreat. Reflecting on the process there, Booker wrote:

“It began with me asking the question – what would a Black Poetic Museum hold and record? I asked and asked until the inquiry became wonder, until the preoccupation began to drip into my subconscious, materialising in dreams, that wondered too. Maybe a poetic museum would catalogue the ongoing historical and contemporary violence inflicted on Black bodies by the state, its relentless ongoing nature beginning with the capture of Black bodies on the African Continent, the middle passage, and the plantation. Maybe it would use language in a conceptional form to honourably poetically catalogue the deaths that occur in police custody in Britain and America and our various reactions to this.”

Manchester Poetry Library is honoured to be able to share new exhibits in the forms of poems, film, photography and objects, as part of this ambitious, ever-evolving project.

Exhibition Launch: Thu 10 April | 6.30pm–8.00pm
Venue: Manchester Poetry Library

Join us for the exhibition preview, which will include contributions from the team behind the exhibition and research, along with a reveal of a limited-edition hand-printed poetry broadside co-created with Manchester Met students and staff for the occasion.

These events are funded by the Manchester Poetry Research Group.