Photo story: Facing the past

One of three figures within the art installation The Three Sophias, at Lancaster Priory. It was created to sit down alongside the second of the “Facing the Past” initiatives, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. “Facing the Past” is an arts and research programme that reflects on omissions in the best way the City of Lancaster has commemorated the part it played because the fourth largest slavery port within the UK. The Vicar of Lancaster Priory, the Revd Leah Vasey-Saunders, says: “A major a part of the project was to commission research to know the Priory’s complicity in transatlantic slavery. An area historian, Dr Melinda Elder, recently uncovered latest black lives in Lancaster, including that of Sophia Fileen. Sophia, originally of Sierra Leone, was baptised in Lancaster Priory on 15 February, 1799, and recorded as ‘a negro aged 11 years’ of Lancaster”. The Priory will likely be open until Wednesday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., for the general public to view the sculptures