Look Again : Empire

Look Again is a series of short books, opening up the conversation about British art over the last 500 years, and exploring what art has to tell us about our lives today. A vital exploration of how Britain’s empire has shaped its art, by one of the UK’s most influential voices. In twenty-first century Britain, the legacy of ‘empire’ is highly contested. Its histories of war, conquest and slavery are difficult and painful to address but its legacy continues to shape our present, and future. In Empire, award-winning author and broadcaster Afua Hirsch explores the ways in which Britain’s imperial history and its national collection of art interact, and how artists from Britain and around the world have responded to the events, tragedies and experiences of the British Empire. Featuring an array of historic and contemporary works, Empire raises questions about ownership and authorship, and asks how the value and meanings of artworks have changed through history and what they still mean to us today.