We are thrilled to welcome “Take Me to the Water: Histories of the Black Pacific”* to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival as a special exhibition this year. The exhibit expands our understanding of maritime history and culture by telling the stories of the many Black whalers, commercial mariners, fishers, explorers, soldiers, and sailors who traveled along the Pacific Coast and traversed the high seas from the 16th century to the present day. It recenters the relationship between Black people, water, and ships, and moves beyond the entrenched narrative of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and towards the understanding that Black people have not only existed in the Pacific region for centuries but played an integral role in the development of Pacific economy and society.
This exhibition is curated by Dr. Caroline Collins (returning to Wooden Boat Festival for her second year sharing her research!) an incoming Assistant Professor at UC San Diego; UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at UC Irvine; an affiliated researcher with the Democracy Lab and the Indigenous Futures Institute at UC San Diego; and is a co-founder of Black Like Water, an interdisciplinary research collective at UCSD that highlights Black relationships to the natural world.
Find this new exhibit in the Northwest Maritime Boatshop, where it will be on display all festival long. And, don’t miss the special presentation by Dr. Collins, (Re)Storying the Black Pacific, on Saturday, September 7, at 9:30 AM on the Cruising Stage. Following Wooden Boat Festival, the exhibit will move to the Jefferson County Historical Society Museum of Art and History until October.
