(c) Do the Right Films

‘We Were Here’: The untold history of Black Africans in the Renaissance

Join us for a special screening of ‘We Were Here’, the acclaimed documentary by filmmaker Fred Kudjo Kuwornu that uncovers the overlooked presence of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. Through artworks, archival research and conversations with leading scholars, the film challenges long-held assumptions about the period, revealing the diverse roles Black people played as courtiers, diplomats, religious figures, merchants and patrons across Renaissance society.

Following the screening, director Fred Kudjo Kuwornu will be joined in conversation by art historian, author and broadcaster Leslie Primo and historian and author Dr Miranda Kaufmann. Together they will explore the film’s themes through the lens of the National Gallery’s collection, considering how artists represented Black figures, what these works can tell us about cultural exchange and identity in Renaissance Europe, and how museums are re-examining histories that have often been overlooked.

This thought-provoking evening offers an opportunity to look again at familiar masterpieces, uncover hidden histories and reflect on the ways art shapes our understanding of the past and present.

Exclusive offer for Festival Supporters: The National Gallery has generously made available a limited number of free tickets for Art History Festival audiences. Booking is required. Event takes place in Pigott Theatre.

Speakers

Fred Kudjo Kuwornu is an Afro-Italian artist, filmmaker, curator and scholar based in New York. His work bridges past and present, the seen and unseen, exploring identity and race through historical remixing of archival materials. Kuwornu’s films have been exhibited at the 60th Venice Art Biennale in the Central Pavillion curated by Adriano Pedrosa (2024), museums and international film festivals and in 2025 his most recent feature documentary qualified for the Academy Awards ‘For Your Consideration’ in the Best Documentary Feature category. In 2025, Kuwornu was awarded the Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship for his innovative approach to early modern European history through the lens of the African diaspora. He also received the Dan David Prize, the world’s largest history award, in recognition of his career-long contributions to public history and cultural memory through audiovisual.

Leslie Primo is an independent art historian author and broadcaster, graduating from Birkbeck, University College, London with an MA in Renaissance studies. He lectured at the National Gallery, London for 18 years, has appeared on the BBC in ‘Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty’, ‘Michelangelo: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’, and ‘Turner: Light and Landscape’. He was a contributor to the ‘Oxford Companion Guide to Black British History’, an art history consultant for the Getty publication, ‘Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art’. Leslie’s book, ‘The Foreign Invention of British Art’ is published by Thames & Hudson in 2025.

Dr. Miranda Kaufmann is the author of the Wolfson History Prize and Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize-shortlisted book ‘Black Tudors: The Untold Story’ (2017). She read History at Christ Church, Oxford and is now an Honorary Fellow of the University of Liverpool, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, where she co-convened the ‘What’s Happening in Black British History?’ workshop series from 2014 to 2022. She served as Lead Historian for the Colonial Countryside project collaborating with National Trust houses from 2019 to 2021; and has taken her work into schools with her Teaching Black Tudors project and to the world with her ‘Black Tudors: The Untold Story’ course with FutureLearn. Her second book, ‘Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery’ (2025), tells the stories of nine British women who inherited people and plantations in the Caribbean.