London

is

teeming

with

things

that

define

our

artistic

history

—

here's

how

you

can

visit

them

In the same boat

Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, Yinka Shonibare, Royal Museums Greenwich

Outside the National Maritime Museum in London is a three-masted ship with brightly coloured sails made from African batik fabric. It is a scaled-down copy of Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, encased in a huge bottle. Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle (2010) was made by Yinka Shonibare, who uses batik fabric in his work to signify the complex identities of British Nigerians such as himself. Batik fabrics were first made in Indonesia, before the technique was imported to Europe and colonial Africa in the 19th century. As Nigeria regained its independence from British rule in 1960, her people embraced the textile art form as symbolic of African nationhood, adding another layer to its identity. Since the 1990s, Shonibare has used batik to clothe headless mannequins, as the sails of colonial vessels and for the covers of Imperial (and immigrant) texts, asking us to consider the complexity of being British in a post-colonial world.