Bringing together Timespan’s Digital & Heritage Curator Jacquie Aitken, local historian David Alston, artist Tilda Williams-Kelly, curator Cat Dunn, and members of the community for a discussion that explores the connection between Highland and Caribbean histories. Anchored in lived experience, community knowledge, and artistic practice, the panel will discuss how the legacies of Empire have influenced identity, land, and culture across generations.

Scotland’s extensive participation in the transatlantic slave economy and the management of Caribbean colonies has been marginalised within mainstream historical discourse. Wealth generated from sugar plantations, enslavement, and colonial administration flowed back into Scottish society, funding universities, landholdings, and cultural institutions.

This event forms part of Timespan’s Decolonising The Highlands research strand, in preparation for the White Ground, Black Water exhibition opening in August this year. This research examines Scotland’s role in Empire, specifically its deep-rooted but often overlooked entanglements with the Caribbean, and the complex legacies of displacement, racial capitalism, and historical erasure that continue to shape both places today.

Image credits
No’moko Jus’now Tilda Williams-Kelly
Oil on canvas 70 x 100 cm unframed 2026