Entangled Pasts, 1768-now is perhaps one of the most powerful and ambitious exhibitions to take place at the RA in decades. The group show, which opened in early February and is now on until late April, features more than 100 historical and contemporary works spanning centuries of history, from the legacies of empire and colonialism to the present moment of resistance and rewriting of narratives.

The exhibition starts with a room dedicated to 18th-century portraits of Black sitters, including one depicting British abolitionist Ignatius Sancho, who was the first person of African descent to vote in a British election. Kerry James Marshall’s 2007 contemporary painting Scipio Moorhead, Portrait of Himself, 1776 portrays Scipio Moorhead, an enslaved African-American artist whose production remains overlooked. Moorhead lived in Boston in the late 18th century and, according to historians, is the creator of the first portrait of a Black American enslaved woman dated 1773. Here, the exhibition declares its mission to reflect critically upon colonialism and how the RA, an art institution deeply rooted in the British Empire, participated in the complacent silencing of multiple voices.

In the final galleries, works by renowned contemporary British artists gain the spotlight. While Frank Bowling’s expressionist abstraction in Middle Passage (1974) produces a poetic reading of geographical landscapes, John Akomfrah’s narrative grandiosity in Vertigo Sea (2015) transports the visitors to the sea, where beings are in constant dispute. Animals threatened with extinction, individuals held in slavery, and thousands of migrants and refugees fighting for their own lives, historically oppressed by white and imperialist structures.

There is much to see – and feel – at Entangled Pasts, 1768-now. And yet, although RA’s critique of empire looks like an impactful, well-orchestrated gesture, a lot of work still has to be done by cultural institutions, museums, and collections in terms of reframing and rebuilding these ‘entangled pasts’. In the meantime, the exhibition marks an significant and necessary step towards the future.