NEW YORK - The Rijksmuseum's exhibition ‘Slavery. Ten True Stories of Dutch Colonial Slavery’, has been on display at the United Nations (UN) in New York since Monday. The exhibition will be on display in the public entrance hall of the UN headquarters until March 30, where thousands of visitors and diplomats from all over the world pass through every day.  

The UN has invited the Rijksmuseum to make a special version of the Slavery exhibition that could be seen in Amsterdam in 2021, because, according to the organization, slavery concerns the whole world. In New York, the ten personal stories from the original exhibition are presented around a single object from the Rijksmuseum collection: a leg iron in which several people could be chained.  

To conclude the exhibition on 30 March, the Rijksmuseum is organizing a discussion meeting with speakers from the United States, the Caribbean and Europe about 'museums and the colonial past' in the famous ECOSOC Chamber at the UN. Keynote speaker is Bryan Stevenson, Founder & Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative.  

In addition, the film New Light will be screened in New York. Documentary filmmaker Ida Does follows the team of curators in the creation of the exhibition in 2021.  

The exhibition will also travel in an adapted form to other UN offices and embassies worldwide.