BlackInk Issue 3

ISSUE 3 OCTOBER 2022

CHAMAN Henri Tauliaut THE GREAT REVEAL: THE VALUE BLACK CREATIVITY Soweto Kinch 2-TONE: MUSIC AND A MOVEMENT Pauline Black

INTERVIEW Vanley Burke

LAUNCHPAD

THE RISE OF INDEPENDENCE Jada O’Neil Kelis Darko Rose Aïda Sall Sao Ty’rone Haughton

BlackInk Issue Three, October 2022 Published by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage Serendipity 21 Bowling Green Street Leicester LE1 6AS

CL00.14 Clephan Building De Montfort University The Gateway Leicester LE1 9BH

+44(0)116 482 1394 info@serendipity-uk.com www.blackink-uk.com www.serendipity-uk.com Copyright © Serendipity Artists Movement Ltd 2022 Company registration number in England and Wales 07248813 Charity registration number in England and Wales 1160035 Editor-in-Chief — Pawlet Brookes Contributors — Pauline Black, Maya Brookes, Pawlet Brookes, Vanley Burke, Hilary Carty, Kelis Darko, Tony Graves, Ty’rone Haughton, Gus John, Caroline Johnson, Sandra Pollock, Natasha A Kelly, Soweto Kinch, Henri Tauliaut, Kwame Nimako, Rose Aïda Sall Sao, Stephen Small, Jada O’Neill, Lisa Amanda Palmer, Khamal Patterson, Georgina Payne, Jamie J Philbert, Tia-Monique Uzor, Olive Vassell, Marcia White, Pam Williams.

Cover Wrap Image — Henri Tauliaut Back Cover Quote — hooks, b., (1999) Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics. South End Press.

Researchers — Amy Grain, Aderonke Omotosho, Georgina Payne, Heather Saunders, Ashly Stanly Design — The Unloved Special Thanks — Antonio Cuyler, Carol Leeming ISSN: 2634-4289 All rights reserved. Whilst every effort has been made to provide accurate information, Serendipity cannot accept responsibility for any inaccuracies contained within this publication. The views expressed in BlackInk are not necessarily those of the contributors, editors or publishers. No part of this publication may be reproduced except for purposes of research without permission from the contributors and publishers.

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Contents 6

Editor’s Welcome — Pawlet Brookes

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Insight: Black British Music

32

Launchpad

46

Arts and Culture

62

Voices of Independence

88

Place and Space

108

New Writing

116

Spotlight - Latinx Amplified — Pawlet Brookes

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2022 In Numbers

120

Coming Soon

126

Calendar Highlights

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The Interview — Vanley Burke

The Great Reveal: The Value Black Creativity — Soweto Kinch Lovers Rock Nostalgia — Lisa Amanda Palmer 2-Tone: Music and a Movement — Pauline Black “Putting on a Performance”: A personal perspective from a Black classical musician — Tony Graves Dance Music is Black Music — Maya Brookes BlackInk Playlist Sculptural Heritage — Kelis Darko Poetry Looks Like Me — Ty’rone Haughton NOIR — Rose Aïda Sall Sao A Journey Through Sound — Jada O’Neill

Practices of Rooting and Spaces of Performative Becoming: Establishing British Caribbean Diasporic Identity through Dance - An Introduction — Tia-Monique Uzor Black Digital Dance Revolution — Georgina Payne Leading Whilst Black — Hilary Carty The Intimacy of Independence — Caroline Johnson The Road to Independence — Gus John Little Britain - The Republic — Sandra Pollock Afrofuturist Autonomy — Henri Tauliaut

Slavery Abolition or Break the Chains? They didn’t free us; we freed ourselves — Kwame Nimako and Stephen Small Raising Cane: A call for the return of an artefact of the Haitian Revolution — Khamal Patterson Racial Justice Conversations in the Dialogue Box — Anita Gonzalez Mapping the Black European Experience — Natasha A Kelly and Olive Vassell The Gayelle In Perpetuity — Jamie J Philbert Walk Good — Marcia White Hibiscus — Pam Williams

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EDITOR’ WELCOM Welcome to the third edition of BlackInk, published by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage. 2022 is a year that marks the sixtieth anniversary of independence for Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Uganda. It is also the first anniversary of Barbados becoming a republic. We have sought to curate this issue with the theme of independence as a starting place, with contributors providing both nuanced personal reflections that connect to their areas of expertise, alongside a critical recounting of international policy. What does independence really mean?

Launchpad showcases the work of emerging artists, from music and poetry to dance and textile design, the work of this year’s cohort of creatives embodies the richness of Black British art across forms. BlackInk New Writing competition returns with two more wonderful pieces of short fiction that are evocative of the different journeys that we take and the parts of ourselves that we have to leave behind. Seeing the responses to our open call-outs is always a delight but also comes with the burden of selection, one that I am grateful for the support of our judges in sharing.

We start the journey through this publication with an insight into Black British music, recognising the role that music has played in unifying people in socio-political struggles.

Black musicians continue to fight for fair remuneration, representation and recognition, not least in the forms that have originated in our communities. But within music there is joy and freedom too. Black classical composers, conductors and musicians are finally being acknowledged for their talent and young voices are paving the way with genre-defying tracks that speak for their generation.

We are thrilled to share the work of artist Henri Tauliaut for the cover of issue three. Born in Guadeloupe and raised in Martinique, two countries that remain under the jurisdiction of France, Henri’s work navigates duality of identity, providing an Afrofuturistic vision, recognising past trauma, honouring our ancestors whilst offering tools for resistance and hope. This creation of space and place is something that many of the articles touch upon, in how we navigate spaces not designed for us to inhabit and in how we create safe places for freedom of expression and existence.

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Editor’s Welcome — Pawlet Brookes

’S ME I hope that you enjoy reading perspectives from across the Diaspora shared throughout this issue. As a multifaceted digital-physical magazine, don’t forget to use the website links and QR codes to access further content including a playlist of the contributors’ favourite tracks inspired by the topics raised.

Please do continue the conversation with us at events in person and on our social media platforms as we move forward.

How To Scan A QR Code 1.

Open the camera app from your device (smart phone or tablet); this can be found on the home screen, control centre, or lock screen.

2.

Hold your device (smart phone or tablet) so that the QR code appears in the camera app’s viewfinder. Your device should recognise the QR code and show a notification.

3.

Tap the notification to open the link associated with the QR code.

Alternatively enter the website address directly into the search bar of your browser.

4.

Enjoy BlackInk’s digital content.

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INSIGHT BLACK BRITISH MUSIC 8

Insight: Black British Music

T: H

A reflection on the power that music holds. From jazz to Lovers Rock, ska and 2-tone, this section celebrates the influence and impact of Black artists from across the UK, echoed in the accompanying playlist. These distinct sounds are the foundation for forging new collective identities, amplifying voices, quite literally, in their calls for action and equity.

The Great Reveal: The Value Black Creativity — Soweto Kinch Lovers Rock Nostalgia — Lisa Amanda Palmer 2-Tone: Music and a Movement — Pauline Black “Putting on a Performance”: A personal perspective from a Black classical musician — Tony Graves Dance Music is Black Music — Maya Brookes BlackInk Playlist

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THE GREAT REVEAL: THE VALUE BLACK CREATIVITY BLACK MUSIC AND SPECIFICALLY JAZZ HAS LONG EXISTED AS A REPOSITORY OF BLACK THOUGHT, AND A WINDOW INTO OUR AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCES. NAMES AND LANGUAGES WERE SYSTEMATICALLY ERASED BY SLAVERY AND COLONIALISM, YET OUR MUSIC, SONG AND DANCE REMAINED LAYERED WITH AFRICAN RETENTIONS - MAINTAINING CONTACT WITH THE ANCESTORS, NEGOTIATING AN OPPRESSIVE PRESENT AND IMAGINING AN EMANCIPATED FUTURE.

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Over the past two years of lockdowns, police brutality and Black Lives Matter, I have mined this rich history to make sense of the present. Not only drawing strength from past travails and triumphs but recognising that Black music has bequeathed a powerful means of reframing debates around equality and “diversity”.

In the two weeks or so following the murder of George Floyd, I was deluged by phone calls and emails from concerned institutions. It triggered instant cynicism - jazz academies, festivals and promoters which had blithely profited from Black art forms, without remunerating or developing any Black people, were under an uncomfortable spotlight. In a flurry of hashtags, Martin Luther King Jr posts and Black squares, scores of jazz stakeholders tripped over themselves to prove they weren’t the bad guys.

It struck me how this rhetorical good will and diversity initiatives have been around for the twenty years I have been a professional - yet somehow, jazz academies and courses, venues and media managed to remain recalcitrantly white.

I’d witnessed the emergence of powerful Black artists such as Shabaka Hutchings and Nubiya Garcia, and a buzz around the UK jazz scene generated by the likes of Jazz Re:freshed and Steam Down, yet the wider infrastructure remains stubbornly monochrome. New acts emerge, yet apparently the gatekeepers remain the same.

Insight: Black British Music The Great Reveal: The Value Black Creativity — Soweto Kinch

Soweto Kinch performing at Black History Month Leicester Launch (2016), 2funkymusic cafe.

Photography by Matt Cawry on behalf of Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.

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Moreover, there was an offensive disjunction between their outward facing anti-racist solidarity and a business model based on plundering and appropriating Black art freely. Across the same two weeks I was flooded with sympathetic “racial solidarity” calls, my entire band was asked to drive to London to play a lockdown concert for a well-funded and established jazz festival for a derisory £150. I was consistently surprised by the entitlement and sometimes delusion of promoters who imagined that our music would cease to exist without them - rather than the other way around.

The same obvious disjunction happened with attitudes to “essential workers”. Across the Western world, residents assembled to bang pots and pans in weekly ritual solidarity with an underpaid and undervalued worker class, who weren’t furloughed and who couldn’t afford not to work. The ability of the entire country to recover from COVID-19 was predicated on an invisible army of bus drivers, nurses and delivery workers. Yet two years on, these workers have not been rewarded for their sacrifice, face crippling inflation and have been subject to a real terms pay cut.

How does a nation convince the most essential workers that they’re an expendable precariat, whilst watching the most obscene accumulations of unearned wealth in British history? Wealthy landlords could self-isolate in commodious gardens throughout lockdown, whilst their tenants struggled to make the monthly rent. Personal fortunes multiplied, unearned wealth soared - best exemplified by former Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos “earning” a reputed $14 billion in less than 24 hours, as we were quarantined, rendered shop less and forced to use his platforms.

Two years of lockdown and Black Lives Matter has in fact been “a great reveal”. The mask has ignominiously slipped, revealing an establishment which expects its subjects to follow the same rules they themselves break routinely.

The survival of this economic system relies on parasitic billionaires believing they are indispensable, whilst the most dynamic and hardest working are conditioned to believe they’re an underclass.

Jazz music has, since its inception, been aware of this inversion of truth. When the basic humanity of Africans across the Diaspora was disputed by race science and eugenics, pioneers such as Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Jelly Roll Morton displayed a superhuman talent. At the turn of the previous century Black people were only seen as sharecroppers and menial labourers yet “King” Oliver, “Duke” Ellington and “Count” Basie projected and comported themselves as a new aristocracy. The music made virtuosi out of a people who were previously considered expendable. They did not try to gently persuade white supremacists to be more charitable, but instead bent the entire world’s ears to their will.

Given the time to reflect and unravel these stories over the past two years, it’s possible to gain clarity on what true independence looks like: reclaiming jazz music’s ability to remould the ways in which we see the world.

Lasting independence and autonomy only emanate from unshackled thought.

I also had time to recognise how much heavy lifting is required to sustain the idea of Black “disadvantage”: as though we are naturally impoverished, corrupt or disaffected. It justifies others claiming our resources without paying; or claiming vast sums for “developing” or “refining” “raw” talent. If large numbers of disadvantaged urban Black youth were suddenly no longer “disadvantaged”, an entire edifice of charities, CICs, well-funded bodies and arts institutions might implode overnight.

It’s time to stop reacting to an ever changing diversity agenda - and instead recognise the true value of Black creativity. We are not “disadvantaged”, we are often hoodwinked, robbed or convinced we need “development”.

Lockdown gave us time to make emancipatory connections, it’s crucial to maintain this, rather than be dragged back into an oppressive routine. We must protect our imagination; creating offline substance and longevity to combat online superficiality and transience. But, perhaps greatest of all is jazz music’s historic ability to hear the unheard, to imagine sounds based on an African inheritance which had not yet been called into existence. We will need it to break free of a binaric and limiting world, and into a truly independent one.

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Insight: Black British Music The Great Reveal: The Value Black Creativity — Soweto Kinch

The mask has ignominiously slipped, revealing an establishment which expects its subjects to follow the same rules they themselves break routinely.

Soweto Kinch performing at Black History Month Leicester Launch (2016), 2Funky Music cafe.

Photography by Matt Cawry on behalf of Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.

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LOVERS ROCK NOSTALGIA 14

Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn and Micheal Ward in Small Axe - Lovers Rock (2020) directed by Steve McQueen.

Still by Parisa Taghizedeh ©BBC/Amazon Studios/Alamy.

Insight: Black British Music Lovers Rock Nostalgia — Lisa Amanda Palmer

I’M A BIT OF A LIGHTWEIGHT WHEN IT COMES TO MY TV VIEWING HABITS USUALLY I AM THE FIRST TO FALL ASLEEP IN FRONT OF THE TV DURING A POPULAR SUNDAY EVENING DRAMA. BUT LAST SUNDAY NIGHT WAS DIFFERENT. STEVE MCQUEEN’S HIGHLY ANTICIPATED SERIES, SMALL AXE PREMIERED ITS SECOND INSTALMENT, LOVERS ROCK ON BBC ONE, CAPTURING A LONG OVERDUE INSIGHT INTO THE LIVES OF YOUNG CARIBBEAN COMMUNITIES IN SOUTH LONDON. I STAYED AWAKE IN ANTICIPATION OF SEEING THE DRAMATISATION OF A SUBJECT THAT I HAVE BEEN STUDYING FOR A WHILE NOW, THE MUSIC AND CULTURE OF THE UK LOVERS ROCK REGGAE SCENE. LOVERS ROCK REGGAE MUSIC IS A DISTINCTIVE GENRE OF ROMANTIC LOVE SONGS THAT CAME OUT OF LONDON DURING THE MID-1970S. THESE TENDER ROMANTIC GENRES OF SONGS MERGED ROOTS REGGAE BASELINES FROM JAMAICA, THE SOULFUL MELODIES OF CHICAGO AND PHILLY SOUL WITH A TOUCH OF BRITISH POP TO FORM THE LOVERS ROCK VIBE. MY ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF LOVERS ROCK AS AN EARLY EXPRESSION OF A DEFINITIVE BLACK UK SOUND.

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As I sat and watched the film, I had one eye on the constant stream of WhatsApp messages and the heated conversations that continued for days after with friends and family debating the merits and authenticity of McQueen’s interpretation of this important cultural marker of Black British music and culture. McQueen’s film documents the underground space of the reggae blues party, a Caribbean cultural institution that has arguably transformed the way popular music is played and experienced here in the UK. In Birmingham, where I’m from, blues parties took place in people’s homes, community halls, leisure centres, Black-owned music and cultural venues, as well as in Irish pubs. During the 1970s and 80s, state authorities viewed the blues party as a social menace that epitomised criminal activity and hedonistic disorder. However, for blues party aficionados, these spaces were a vital sanctuary of communal pleasure and enjoyment, a self- created and selfdefined space away from the everyday forms of racism that were commonplace in Thatcher’s Britain.

The film is attentive to some of the various elements needed to hold a blues party in your “yard”. The huge pots of rice and peas and curry goat; the removal of the Axminister carpet, the sofa and furniture from your living room as if you were moving house; the wiring up of the epic speaker boxes to balance the treble and the heavy baselines of the sound system; the eagerness to drop the latest style and fashion as you step into the party in shiny sateen dresses or your Gabicci shirt were all essential features in the film that captured the cultural tones and stylistic tenor of this period.

These details are important because it’s very rare for them to be given such attention on British TV screens.

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However, because such representations are so rare, this attention to detail is also the film’s weakness. The “dub” scene where we see a young Rastafari bredrin falling to the ground in a frenzied “wild” spiritual trance missed the significance of dub as a deeply educational form of communication. The blues party was an erotic space as much as it was a space of thinking and learning from the wit, skill and lyrical dexterity of the deejays that chatted freestyle lyrics and verses over the mic. In some ways, but not all, the deejay was a precursor to Black Twitter, offering detailed and critical social commentary but with a distinctive anticolonial critique to “chant down Babylon.”

In McQueen’s film we enter the story through the lead character Martha, played by Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn and her burgeoning love story with Franklyn, played by Micheal Ward. We see the beginnings of a budding romance as they slow wine on the dancefloor and share a tentative conversation about their families back home in Jamaica.

Cynthia, the 17-year host of the party, sees Martha as her rival although it is Martha that comes to her rescue after she is sexually assaulted at her party. When Cynthia seeks comfort from her friend Grace, we see a rare glimpse of queer Black love depicted in a space organised along the codes of heteronormativity.

The promotion of the film hinged heavily on Janet Kay’s Lovers Rock classic, ‘Silly Games’ and the iconic highpitched note that soars and climbs during the chorus of the song. There is no doubting the cultural significance of Kay’s track. Lovers Rock enjoyed popular mainstream chart success during the 1970s when Kay performed ‘Silly Games’ on Top of the Pops in 1979, where the track reached number two in the UK Top 40 chart. But as joyful and compelling as the track is, at one point in the film the song is extensively featured for over eleven minutes at the expense of a plethora of other classic Lovers Rock tracks of the period. Now, any sound system worth their salt and anyone who has ever attended a blues party knows that this would never have happened. Sound system culture is about your selectors’ ability to “rinse tune”, meaning a sound system’s credibility rests on them demonstrating the unique depth and range of their music back catalogue. For those who are maybe new to the sound system scene, these details may not matter at all. But for the folks who do remember, such details mark the line between flashes of genuine insight and moments of contrived nostalgia.

Insight: Black British Music Lovers Rock Nostalgia — Lisa Amanda Palmer

Sound system culture is about your selectors’ ability to “rinse tune”, meaning a sound system’s credibility rests on them demonstrating the unique depth and range of their music back catalogue.

Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn and Shaniqua Okwok in Small Axe - Lovers Rock (2020) directed by Steve McQueen.

Still by Parisa Taghizedeh ©BBC/Amazon Studios/Alamy.

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2-TONE: MUSIC AND A MOVEMENT PEOPLE OFTEN ASK ME “WHAT DID THE 2-TONE MOVEMENT ACHIEVE?” STILL BEING A TOPIC OF CONVERSATION 42 YEARS LATER IS MERIT ENOUGH, I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT.

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Insight: Black British Music 2-Tone: Music and a Movement — Pauline Black

Coventry, home of 2-tone music, launched their City of Culture 2021 with a 2-tone: Lives and Legacies exhibition, exploring how the movement fought racism and sexism from 1979 onwards, before words like multiculturalism had ever been invented. The Selecter, which I fronted and The Specials were tackling themes of inclusivity and diversity back then, just by the simple means of Black and white musicians playing together in bands that had developed a shared respect for the different musical genres that they had grown up with. We were pioneers of a post-punk, ska and reggae mix, infectious dance music with a strong social and often political message. The exhibition at the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery received thousands of visitors and even a visit from Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. 2-tone’s message rang true in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. It was, as if, the historical legacy of racism in this country and beyond had finally come knocking on the door of the establishment, only this time young Black activists were using the front entrance.

Coventry has a proud history. It is the city of peace and reconciliation. Even though it was savagely bombed during the Second World War, the post war car industry boom decimated in the early 80’s and endured years of neglect in the aftermath, like the city’s symbol, the phoenix, it has risen again. The legacy of 2-tone has been part of that struggle, its unifying message encompassing all that is good about humanity when it comes together in a progressive way.

Pauline Black. Photograph by Brian Aris.

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Pauline Black with members of The Selecter. Courtesy of Pauline Black and DMF Music.

Insight: Black British Music 2-Tone: Music and a Movement — Pauline Black

In 1979 when the 2-tone movement first appeared on the scene, it united Black and white youth in their collective struggles against police oppression and Margaret Thatcher’s need to atomize working class people, by destroying our traditional communities and continually fostering division through racism. 2-tone was a product of that struggle. We musicians picked up the baton passed to us by Rock Against Racism, a grass-roots organisation, formed in response to Eric Clapton’s support of racist politician Enoch Powell in an impromptu onstage rant during a show at Birmingham Odeon. RAR organised a huge concert in Victoria Park London, which united 80,000 people, who wanted to throw off the xenophobic attitudes of their parents’ generation.

It politicised the youth of the day, so that when the 2-tone movement, with its sharp black and white iconography, upbeat music and anti-racist lyrics arrived on the scene, they embraced the message wholeheartedly.

We overcame many hurdles in the music business, not least among ourselves. Many arguments and differences of opinion, but what united us was the music. It was full of hope for the future. For once there was a common currency, even in the teeth of Black oppression in countries like South Africa, still suffering with apartheid and ongoing voter suppression in the Southern states of America. Despite the Civil Rights gains of 1968, we knew we were doing the right thing and large sections of Black and white youth felt the same.

We toured worldwide relentlessly. I’ll never forget playing in Texas in 1980. The Selecter was a young, predominantly Black band. We were excited to do anything to promote ourselves back home. We had just played Dallas and a photo shoot and story was being written for one of the music papers that were popular in Britain at the time. We thought it would be cool to use the white picket fence of Southfork Ranch, where the popular TV series Dallas was made, as a backdrop. Five minutes into our shoot, a flatbed truck rolled by containing burly rednecks carrying baseball bats. They suggested to our tour bus driver that he “herded” us n******s back on the bus and left pronto, otherwise there would be a reckoning. Needless to say, we did not need telling twice.

For the past 42 years, the ethos of 2–tone has been my lived experience. All the bands of that era continue performing, all adhering to the anti-racist message we held dear in 1979.

The light of 2–tone may not shine as bright today as back then, but this little light of mine still shines, still trying to illuminate a path towards justice and truth, which people who look like me have been following for over 400 years.

It was, as if, the historical legacy of racism in this country and beyond had finally come knocking on the door of the establishment, only this time young Black activists were using the front entrance.

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Chineke! Orchestra Performing at Southbank Centre, London (2021). Photographer The Hoberman Collection/Alamy.

Insight: Black British Music “Putting on a Performance”: A personal perspective from a Black classical musician — Tony Graves

“PUTTING ON A PERFORMANCE”: A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE FROM A BLACK CLASSICAL MUSICIAN RECENTLY I TUNED INTO RADIO 3. THE PIECE BEING BROADCAST WAS ‘ELEGY – IN MEMORIAM STEPHEN LAWRENCE’ COMPOSED BY PHILIP HERBERT. I WAS DEEPLY MOVED NOT ONLY BY THE BEAUTY OF THE MUSIC BUT ALSO ITS IMPORTANCE AS A TESTAMENT TO THE LIFE OF STEPHEN LAWRENCE. WHAT ALSO AFFECTED ME WAS THE FACT THAT THIS WAS A PIECE

BY A BLACK CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL COMPOSER BEING FEATURED ON A MAINSTREAM PROGRAMME ON RADIO 3.

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The presenter introduced Herbert’s work without referring to him as a “Black” composer but simply as a composer whose music was being played alongside that of other composers who form a regular part of the station’s classical output. As a former concert pianist whose experience of the classical world involved feeling both “in it” but not “of it”, I found myself asking the question - how important was it for listeners to know that Herbert is a Black classical composer?

I feel compelled to ask this given the narrative that stereotypes Black people as never having embraced or made any significant contribution to classical music. One need only refer to the documented presence of John Blanke, a Black trumpeter in the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII, to know this narrative is untrue. Audiences might be more familiar with the nineteenth century composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor whose music is part of the classical music canon. However, it is somewhat paradoxical, if not downright objectionable, that he is often referred to as the “African Mahler”, defining him by his ethnicity rather than as a composer in his own right.

My own path as a concert pianist stemmed from being born into a Ghanaian family in which listening to Bach was the norm. My grandfather, father and relatives were highly accomplished classical musicians and composers. I recall my parents entering me into a local piano competition at the age of 10. I remember playing the piece note perfect but despite this I was placed last behind children who could barely string two notes together. This was England in the 1960s.

Fast forward 8 years (having earlier won the Sheila Mossman Memorial Prize for piano1) to being the only Black student studying piano on the performer’s course at the Royal College of Music in the mid 70s.

My classical training led to a career as a concert pianist, but I realise that I had become part of a musical establishment that reflected a Eurocentric approach to music. This approach meant ignoring music from other classical traditions such as that of West Africa performed on the classical instrument - the kora.

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A personal turning point came in 1985 when I was asked by the Greater London Council (GLC) to produce a ground-breaking concert by Black classical musicians and composers at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre called Visions ‘85. It featured composers such as Eleanor Alberga and Shirley Thompson (who developed the concert’s artistic programme and vision) as well as the kora player Tunde Jegede. Significantly it was attended by a Black audience. None of us had performed in front of an audience with that demographic before. The dynamic was liberating and affirming. 10 years later I found myself organising a series of classical concerts, as part of an international festival celebrating African arts and culture throughout the Diaspora. The programme again featured Black classical composers, including Nigerian composer Fela Sowende, and aimed to address the continuing marginalisation of Black classical composers and musicians2 . The concerts were well received but had limited impact on the wider classical world.

Recent developments have provided more cause for optimism. For example, the creation of the pioneering Chineke Orchestra3, founded by musician Chi Chi Nwanoku, and the emergence of artists such as cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason have done much to change the narrative.

Institutions such as the BBC Proms have seemingly adopted a more dynamic approach to programming, dispensing with some of the traditions that put off wider audiences from attending classical music concerts.

Barriers of course still exist. It is worth considering the role conductors and performers play via their choice of repertoire as this greatly impacts what works are performed and what audiences can hear. The neglect of George Bridgetower, the celebrated eighteenth-century virtuoso violinist for whom Beethoven wrote his famous Kreutzer Sonata, is one of many such omissions from the repertoire and leads to an important question. Why are his works and those by other Black composers such as Chevalier de StGeorges, Amanda Eldridge and Florence Price not heard in concert halls?

Looking back, I am able to celebrate the enormous joy I experienced and privilege of being a concert pianist.

However, I regret not having had the opportunity to perform works by composers such as Shirley Thompson, Philip Herbert, Errolyn Wallen, et al. Doing so would have helped their music reach wider audiences and challenge the narrative that has largely rendered Black musicians and composers invisible within the classical music landscape. It might also have resolved the paradoxical feeling of being “in” but not “of” the classical music world.

Insight: Black British Music “Putting on a Performance”: A personal perspective from a Black classical musician — Tony Graves

Footnotes 1.

A yearly prize awarded for obtaining the highest mark in the country for Grade VIII Piano.

2.

The important work of Nigerian composer and musicologist Dr Akin Euba in researching and documenting African art music should be highlighted in this regard.

3.

The first professional orchestra in Europe to be made up of majority Black, Asian and ethnically diverse musicians.

I feel compelled to ask this given the narrative that stereotypes Black people as never having embraced or made any significant contribution to classical music.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912). Photograph by Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy.

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DANCE MUSIC IS BLACK MUSIC – THE MOBO AWARDS BLACK ARTISTS HAVE BEEN PIONEERS OF SOME OF MUSIC’S MOST POPULAR GENRES THAT HAVE GAINED RECOGNITION AND FAME ALL OVER THE WORLD. CATEGORIES SUCH AS HIP HOP, R‘N’B AND SOUL ARE CATEGORIES WHERE THEIR BLACK ROOTS AND PIONEERS ARE ACKNOWLEDGED AND CELEBRATED AS ITS DESCENDANTS CONTINUE TO ADAPT THESE SOUNDS, MAKING IT INTO MAINSTREAM MUSIC THAT WE KNOW IT AS TODAY. HOWEVER, ONE GENRE THAT CONTINUES TO GET MISIDENTIFIED IS ELECTRONIC AND DANCE MUSIC. DUE TO DECADES OF HEAVY WHITEWASHING OF THE GENRE, EVEN AMONGST BLACK COMMUNITIES, DANCE MUSIC IS SEEN AS WHITE.

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Insight: Black British Music Dance music is Black music – The MOBO awards — Maya Brookes

The annual British MOBO awards is a prime example of where electronic/dance music is neglected in the Black music industry. The Music of Black Origin awards in Britain, designed to honour Black excellence in music, has categories dedicated to less mainstream genres such as best reggae, best jazz and best African, yet a best electronic/ dance category has not been awarded in decades. When the music awards first launched in 1996, awards were presented to Goldie for best jungle act, who simultaneously won best album that year, and best dance act went to Baby D. Yet, in a genre that continues to be popular amongst youth cultures internationally, where is the recognition for the artists of today who are keeping this genre alive?

Nia Archives. Photographer Natalia Bjerke.

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Leeds-raised Nia Archives is a rising star in the UK electronic and dance scene, with her music taking inspiration from her Jamaican roots. The talented female junglist DJ, singer/songwriter and producer took to Instagram earlier in the year to express her discontent with the MOBOs for their continued neglect for Black electronic/ dance artists: “As an organisation, you have continually resisted to take responsibility for your disregard in supporting Black electronic/dance artists. This is a massive community issue. How can we expect young Black people to see themselves in the music if our own organisations and award ceremonies won’t even celebrate the diverse range of talent that boldly exists in this country”

However, a shift can be seen in mainstream music and what is gaining recognition. ‘Afraid To Feel’ by LF System, a Scottish duo, has spent three weeks at number one in the UK official charts at the time of writing. The track samples a 1975 track ‘I Can’t Stop (Turning You On)’ by Black soul group, Silk.

The track has been praised for being the first dance track to reach number one in twelve months. Across the Atlantic, Black artists who aren’t normally engaged in the dance scene are creating music championing the Black roots of electronic music, such as Beyonce’s new house track, ‘Break My Soul’, or Drake’s new dance album, ‘Honestly Nevermind’.

The problem stems from the fact the genre as whole is misidentified by all groups. Black people struggle to see the music as their own when the dominant artists in the field don’t reflect them as a community. As a university student where people from all walks of life come together, the different stereotypes surrounding the electronic/ dance scene become very evident. To generalise, from the perspective of my Black peers, saying that I love house music or techno would come across as if I am disassociating from my Black roots, as they instantly assume that I am neglecting the music of Black artists, instead choosing to listen to white music by artists such as Calvin Harris or Martin Garrix. However, in speaking with white friends from more sheltered corners of the UK, my interest in garage or jungle music are completely foreign terms, where they assume my music taste would be in the only mainstream Black category they know, which is hip hop.

Kaytranada’s Grammy award in 2021 for best dance album was a ground-breaking achievement. Not only was he the first Black artist to win this award, but he was also the first openly gay producer to win in this category. This is greatly significant considering the category which was launched in 2004, and stems from Black queer artists who were the original creators of house music, a genre that paved the way for several subsequent other sub genres. Will it take this recognition that America is finally giving to the origins of electronic/dance music to spark a change here in the UK and perhaps inspire the MOBO awards to rethink their categories? Why is it that the MOBO awards don’t have a dance category? Is it because this once Black music genre has become so gentrified that it is now seen as white?

This goes to show exactly why it is so important that organisations such as the MOBO awards play their role in shaping how music is perceived. By not including an electronic/dance category it disregards the genre’s Black origins and therefore makes it harder for Black youth to identify with a type of music that their predecessors pioneered. Electronic and dance music itself encompasses so many subsequent genres, such as house, garage, jungle and techno, all originating from Black artists. The narrative needs to be rewritten and the light needs to be shown on the Black artists who are still ever-present. The Black roots of electronic music needs to be recognised to inspire the future generations of Black DJs, producers and dance music enthusiasts.

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(Nia Archives, 2022)

Insight: Black British Music Dance music is Black music – The MOBO awards — Maya Brookes

References Archives, N. (2022) Post 14 April [website] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CcU9o2cubwn/ (Accessed:4 August 2022) Bain, K. (2021). Kaytranada Is the First Black Artist to Win Best Dance/Electronic Album Grammy. [online] Billboard. Available at: https://www. billboard.com/music/awards/kaytranada-firstblack-artist-to-win-best-dance-electronic-albumgrammy-9541145/ (Accessed:4 August 2022) Beatportal. (2022). Introducing: Nia Archives. [online] Available at: https://www.beatportal.com/ features/introducing-nia-archives/ (Accessed:4 August 2022) Griffiths, G. (2022). Jodie Harsh interview: It’s a ‘really exciting time’ to be releasing dance music. [online] Available at: https://www.officialcharts. com/chart-news/jodie-harsh-on-new-single-shockdrake-beyonces-house-pivot-and-label-mateslf-systems-number-1-success-the-focus-is-backon-dance-music-now-as-it-should-be__36869/ (Accessed:4 August 2022) Officialcharts.com. (2019). Official Singles Chart Top 100 | Official Charts Company. [online] Available at: https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/ (Accessed:4 August 2022)

To generalise, from the perspective of my Black peers, saying that I love house music or techno would come across as if I am disassociating from my Black roots, as they instantly assume that I am neglecting the music of Black artists, instead choosing to listen to white music by artists such as Calvin Harris or Martin Garrix.

Goldie (1999). Photographer John Rankin Waddell, assistants: Simon Fly, Darron and Steve.

Star, H., and Jaguar (2020) The MOBO Awards need dance and electronic music categories. [online] Available at: https://mixmag.net/feature/ mobo-awards-dance-electronic-music (Accessed:4 August 2022)

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BLACKINK ISSUE THREE PLAYLIST A PLAYLIST OF BLACK ARTISTS TO ACCOMPANY THE JOURNEY THROUGH BLACKINK ISSUE THREE. FROM ELECTRONIC TO GRIME, 2-TONE AND REGGAE TO SOUL, JAZZ, CLASSICAL AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN, THIS ECLECTIC MIX FEATURES TRACKS NOMINATED BY THE CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE AND ADDITIONAL CHOICES FROM THE EDITORIAL TEAM INSPIRED BY THE THEMES EXPLORED THROUGHOUT. 30

Scan the QR code to listen on Spotify

Insight: Black British Music BlackInk Issue Three Playlist

Song Name

Artist

Suggested by

Woman

Little Simz, Cleo Sol

Maya Brookes

Melanin

Ashley Henry

Soweto Kinch

Moko

Annalie Prime

Jamie J Philbert

Someday We’ll All Be Free

Donny Hathaway

Pawlet Brookes

Water

Kojey Radical, Mahalia, Swindle

Serendipity

Looking Back

Loyle Carner

Serendipity

Mash up the Dance

Watch the Ride and Nia Archives

Serendipity

New Banger

Kano

Ty’rone Haughton

Too Much Pressure

The Selecter

Serendipity

Break of Dawn

Skiifall, BADBADNOTGOOD, The Kount, YAMA//SATO

Kelis Darko

Superheroes

Stormzy

Serendipity

Letter to my Sistars

Misha B

Georgina Payne

Peng Black Girls

ENNY, Amia Brave

Serendipity

Wrong Address

Etana

Sandra Pollock

Bygones

Jada O’Neill

Carol Leeming

I Should’ve Known Better

Mica Paris

Lisa Amanda Palmer

Quien fue

Sachellys

Serendipity

Natural Mystic

Bob Marley and The Wailers

Henri Tauliaut

Centricity

Soweto Kinch

Serendipity

The Harder They Come!

Jimmy Cliff

Hilary Carty

Black

Dave

Serendipity

Grow - A Colors Encore

FACESOUL

Rose Aïda Sall Sao

Field Recording of Jamaican Folk Music

Recorded by Edward Seaga, Folkways Records. FW04453, FE 4453

Vanley Burke

Elegy - In Memoriam Stephen Lawrence

Philip Herbert, Chineke! Orcheestra, Anthony Parnther

Tony Graves 31

LAUNC 32

Launchpad

CHPAD Launchpad returns with “The Rise of Independence” for the third edition of BlackInk, showcasing four artists who are part of repositioning and re-shaping the voice of contemporary Black British artists. Working across and between art forms from music and poetry to dance and textile design, personal reflections and odes to heritage interweave with sharp societal observations. The selected artists will also launch Black History Month with in-person performances for BHM Live on 1 October.

Sculptural Heritage – Kelis Darko Poetry Looks Like Me – Ty’rone Haughton NOIR – Rose Aïda Sall Sao A Journey Through Sound – Jada O’Neill

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SCULPTURAL HERITAGE

GROWING UP, I WAS ALWAYS ATTRACTED TO VISUAL INFORMATION, DRAWING, PAINTING AND GETTING EXCITED AT DIFFERENT COLOURS. I REMEMBER MY SECOND YEAR OF PRIMARY SCHOOL, WHEN ASKED WHAT OCCUPATION I WANTED TO DO WHEN I GREW OLDER. I SAID THAT I WANTED TO BE A FASHION DESIGNER. AT THE TIME, I PROBABLY DID NOT REALISE WHAT THAT ENTAILED. BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT CREATING THAT I WAS ATTRACTED TO AT A YOUNG AGE. NONE OF MY FAMILY COME FROM AN ARTISTIC BACKGROUND, SO THE INITIAL SPARK FOR ME IS UNKNOWN. HOWEVER, WITH THE PASSION AND SUPPORT OF MY FAMILY, I WAS ENCOURAGED TO PURSUE WHAT I TRULY LOVE DOING... CREATING!

Once I got to university, I realised that textile design was for me. It combined fine art with design work which I loved.

When it came to drawing, painting, photography, collage, and 3D art, I enjoyed all of them. I loved how open it was and it opened my eyes to see how ideas can lead to a final product, having the opportunity to work and surround myself with other creatives. I feel that we all bounce ideas off of each other despite our design work being different and that a collaborative environment inspires you.

This project, Sculptural Heritage embraces my West African culture through sculptural marking-making and abstract pattern. My mother is a first-generation Ghanaian, and my father is mixed-race, of Portuguese and Ghanaian heritage.

Naturally, cultural aspects influence my work and my design aesthetic, usually through colour palette consideration and abstract paintings. The concept draped around the idea of “Black Britain”. I wanted to observe how the young African Diaspora wears their clothes, their hairstyles and even the music that reminds us of our heritage. As a print designer, I took inspiration from diverse fashion and textile influences.

I looked at set designers, fashion stylists, trend books and fashion films, for example, fashion photographer Nadine Ijewere, whose work platforms representation alongside a beautifully vibrant and colourful aesthetic.

Fashion illustration was the easiest way to communicate my ideas. My vision was to create layered, collage-like garments so that the prints from the collection could be mixed and matched to create flouncy dresses. I chose to use a range of weighted silks to evoke this idea. All my screen prints were hand-dyed by me as this is one technical process I thoroughly enjoy doing. I used screen and digital printing, Devoré, silk hand painting, laser cutting and appliqué to create the desired aesthetic. Combining surface techniques kept me kinaesthetically engaged and built visual interest for my collection.

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Launchpad Sculptural Heritage — Kelis Darko

Deconstructed illustration by Kelis Darko.

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Pink and White Illustration by Kelis Darko.

Launchpad Sculptural Heritage — Kelis Darko

Screen print illustration by Kelis Darko.

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Ty’rone Haughton. Photographer Kate Green.

Launchpad Poetry Looks Like Me — Ty’rone Haughton

POETRY LOOKS LIKE ME TY’RONE HAUGHTON IS A JAMAICAN BORN POET, PRACTITIONER AND CARE LEAVER. TY’RONE’S POETRY FOCUSES ON SOCIETAL ISSUES, IDENTITY AND VULNERABILITIES. HIS DEBUT POETRY COLLECTION, HOODS, IS DUE FOR PUBLICATION IN NOVEMBER 2022 WITH VERVE POETRY PRESS.

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POETRY LOOKS LIKE ME

GUN FINGER POETRY 1

This is not fast food poetry But more Cornmeal porridge poetry.

Yam and banana No fertiliser Organically produced Old time farmer poetry.

“What is that?

I cannot understand that poetry.”

For the barren mind This is strong back poetry.

This can’t be my first life Cause I was born in the third world Seen some things we ain’t even made words for.

But history class wanna teach me bout a world war.

And your Romans Bun dem and Babyloinans too.

I should be up in Buckingham like I belong in this too.

So listen Elizabeth could you tell me this please?

Why the colonies still suffer under your regime?

Why we get no trust funds and beneficiaries?

Tell me Regina, Why my culture get treat like vagina?

Why my country sell its streets off to China?

Show me the common wealth in this Commonwealth, I am listening.

Because the little kings and queens in Kingston Have got no dreams of Princeton.

It’s too hard to beat the system.

My poetry is more Anthony B. Won’t ever see me in your anthology.

But there is no way you could ever tell me Poetry doesn’t look like me!

When I come from a big small island of big boy writers.

Babylon fighters and spiritual guiders.

Big woman who set fires to oppressive.

Marleys and Zephaniahs.

Jean Binta licked a piece ah breeze that hit the sea shore.

Honour the Fords and Lornas and Kwames That kicked down big doors.

I am from a culture of Blues and riddim.

Good food in the kitchen.

We don’t pay mind or make room for any ism and skism.

Tek time and listen To the language of our hearts.

Poetry runs through we like river to the sea.

From the mouths of sound boys to revival service.

Poetry is the tones of Dancehall and the prayers in churches.

Poetry looks like Curry Goat on paper plate.

And Nine Nights for the late.

It looks like Granny’s black mint tea and the Caribbean Sea. Poetry looks like me.

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I only use my voice for these girls and boys.

The mission is to spread these messages on the quest for bettering.

For too long we’ve been settling.

That’s what I’m on.

I’m from a certain class in a certain school.

Taught to only talk facts and follow certain rules.

Don’t tell lies about the loot and flashy cars to make the people listen.

I just talk the truth and stand behind my bars like the penal system.

I don’t know about gimmicks I wouldn’t know what to do with that.

I just came to spit lyrics like SuperCat Not poetry’s superman I’m the kryptonite like Lex Luther’s back.

Launchpad Poetry Looks Like Me — Ty’rone Haughton

HURDLERS This is not for the fun of it Nothing cheesy I need thee to feel the bun of it.

Feel the brunt of it.

So I need to be blunt with it Give you something you could run with it.

A true need to be succinct For soon I may be extinct Because men of my race are finishing quickly.

Forgive me.

For not knowing my life was a sprint meet.

Hurdles were set from when we left the whom.

For whom this may be concerning This place has made us feel burdened for ages.

Black birds in cages.

And we feel the burn as the fire blazes.

It is hard to think hell is hotter than this.

Heaven better be covered in bliss.

Because this world is an abyss And it wouldn’t go amiss to say I wouldn’t miss these misty days When my soul drifts away.

Willie lynch made sure my hurdles stood stiff.

Stood tall.

Something I couldn’t climb Something I couldn’t crawl.

Something I couldn’t lift.

Something too strong A race too long.

I may always fall nigh A hurdle too high for me A world that’s not right for me.

They shown me dreams that blinded me.

It’s like we’re in a new plantation They’re tracking field niggers.

Music and sport We were taught For our sort Was the only way to make real figures.

Track and field niggers.

Or if effort and talent may lack Sell crack.

Stay black And remember that.

The hurdles set before us And our sons and daughters And their sons and daughters.

Were created by our slaughterers.

A creative way to murder us.

Then they call us murderers.

Oh so murderous.

They made us hurdlers.

They say “Aim sky high and achieve.

Be a bright guy with a degree.”

But our knowledge of law and physics Will never stop the unlawful killings By the spraying of the authority’s ballistics.

We die as guilty victims.

They got me by using men who look like me to tempt me With Bentleys and Brietlings.

And nice things on my skin.

To disguise the Pain that we’re feeling Every day that we’re living.

The dirty frame that we’re filling.

We see a flash But it’s not a Kodak when they’re clicking.

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NOIR IDENTITY IS THE STRONGEST FORCE IN HUMAN PERSONALITY. BUT WHY DO WE HAVE THE NEED TO STAY CONSISTENT WITH HOW WE DEFINE OURSELVES? THERE IS AN ALCHEMICAL MOMENT WHEN THE SHADOW BECOMES ILLUMINATED. THE “GOLDEN SHADOW” APPEARS. WHEN WE FACE OUR SHADOW-SIDES, WE REKINDLE WITH OUR STRENGTH. NOIR SPEAKS OF INTEGRATING ALL OF THE PARTS OF OURSELVES, TO THEN ALLOW OURSELVES TO CHANGE FROM ONE THING TO ANOTHER. WE ARE EVER SHAPESHIFTING.

“TO REJECT THE BLACK IS TO TELL THE SUN TO LEAVE AS SHE CASTS SHADOWS WITH HER HEAT.” 42

Rose Aida Sall Sao. Photographer Mikarl Ohlsson.

Launchpad NOIR — Rose Aïda Sall Sao

– BIOGRAPHY Rose is a Dutch/Senegalese performer and poet. She began her dance training at the age of 18 at Amsterdam University of the Arts and graduated from Fontys Dance Academy and NSCD. She is a JV2 graduate and has had the opportunity to work with C12 Dance Theatre, Tribe//, Chhaya Collective, Heather Walrond Company, Tom Dale Company, Northern Rascals and Gecko Dance Theatre. She is currently working with Fubunation, Seke Chimutengwende and Alesandra Seutin. She also creates her own work.

Her duet D(US)T with Juan Sanchez Plaza has been performed at festivals such as Tantrotsav (India), Migrats En Breu (Valencia), SoloDuo Festival (Cologne), DelTebre Dansa (Deltebre, Spain). She is also part of Nomad Dance Collective. Their first piece No-mades recently premiered at Fragments of June in Guayaquil (Ecuador) and La Trinchera (Ecuador).

She believes movement and words have a strong transformative power. They are useful tools in un-covering our blockages, discovering our strengths and allowing ourselves to integrate all that we are. They allow us to come to a more grounded, truthful place. She considers her poems like prayers. They are calls to awaken our intuition and to go back to our most natural state: receptive, free from judgment and playful. In her movement practice she’s interested in shapeshifting and following our natural instincts, using improvisation as a way to allow transformation and to become a little bit freer.

When we (want to) let go we begin again And a helpful beginning it is: putting together a great light across stillness after memories once bound, now drooping and wilted Nothing happens until something moves A profound snake-oiling, through gnawing noise of unworthiness, through muddy waters of defined moulds travel homeland on your own (this is how you befriend yourself) Have you ever looked at your own violence and seen its innocence?

When you hit the full whirling of your mind, there’s nothing left but reinventing The good news is: it will change you We must end, we must stand guard at the door of our own minds As invitations to what it means to be boundless wash over us like waves that kiss our gaze into rose-tinted glasses and new beginnings boil over and there’s nothing left but surrender (this is how you befriend yourself) When sticky unspeakables rise up let’s swallow them like milk and honey, let’s sip until we burst through shadows to become larger and wider to bring kindness to tightness to feel more of who and what we are: True shapeshifting things - alchemists We set ourselves on fire. (this is how to stand in darkness and illuminate) 43

A JOURNEY THROUGH SOUND – BIOGRAPHY Born in the beautiful island of Barbados and raised in Antigua and Barbuda, singer and songwriter Jada O’Neill began writing songs at the age of seven and represented her secondary school in a national competition (and placed second) before moving to England at 17 to follow her passion of becoming a musician.

Moving to Leicester to live with her best friend, Jada O’Neill has found herself at the heart of a flourishing music scene. Although often unrecognised on the national and international stage, Leicester is a city that in both the past and present has nurtured artists as varied as Laurel Aitken, Carol Leeming (KYO to those in the know), Lisa Millett, Romeo Challenger, Sharone Addico, Mellow Baku, Marcus Joseph and rising stars Queen Millz, Jafro and now Jada herself.

With soul, R’n’B, House and Afrobeat-inspired songs, Jada O’Neill shapes soulful melodies drawing on her multicultural Caribbean upbringing, surrounded by flora and fauna and with a strong connection to the ocean. She is inspired by eclectic musical influences: Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone, Boogie, Adele, Koffee and Ari Lennox.

In 2022, Jada O’Neill released her first three tracks and shares the stories behind each single.

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Launchpad A Journey Through Sound — Jada O’Neill

WAVES ‘Waves’ is very personal to me. It is my debut release.

Previously, when I was younger, I had shared covers on YouTube but ‘Waves’ is my first single. The track itself is inspired from when I first moved to the UK. I was in a long-distance relationship and it was difficult because of the time difference and a lack of communication with my partner at the time. Highs and lows and inconsistencies. It came it from a place of feeling like one minute we could be so good and the next day it’s just shit. I think that people can connect with that sense of not being alone. Everyone has difficulties and struggles with their partners.

BBC Radio Leicester made ‘Waves’ their track of the week.

It has been crazy to achieve that with my first song and to have people recognise me on the radio. I used to busk locally, so to have that support means a lot.

The music video was directed by Hubert Kotlicki and Conrad Smart. Originally, I had booked a venue, but they cancelled on me the day before we were due to shoot. I had no choice to film it at my flat. Making the most out of the situation, we played with lights, projectors and fabrics to create different effects. I also decided to film on an old VHS camera (my date night in Nottingham the following day) and incorporate that as flashbacks in the music video. I think the final results are beautiful, despite it being a bit spur of the moment.

BYGONES ‘Bygones’ is my confession of acceptance. Driven by a mellow guitar, it is a very introspective track, exploring forgiveness, honesty and letting go.

Let bygones be bygones, Let hate just be hate, Let love just be love, As my mind goes insane…

CAN I JUST ‘Can I Just’ is my most recent single and my first House track but also touches on lots of different genres. I’ve been really inspired by Kaytranada’s work and always wanted to make a house track. The feeling of going out, seeing someone, falling in love, the urge and suspense of seeing them again.

We filmed the music video at lots of different spots around Leicester including Orton Square, De Montfort University Campus, Castle Gardens. The track is produced by Maniscooler, a Leicester based producer who has received accolades from Pepsi and NBA 2k.

Jada O’Neill, Bygones (2022). Photographer Hubert Kotlicki (HQ Media)

References Wordplay (2022) Jada O’Neill – Bygones (Single) [Online] Available at: https://www. wordplaymagazine.com/blog-1/2022/4/26/jadaoneill-bygones-single (Accessed: 5 August 2022) Volcano Radio (2022) JADA O’NEILL EBBS AND FLOWS WITH “WAVES” [Online] Available at: https://vocalo. org/jada-oneill-feature/ (Accessed: 5 August 2022) George, D., (2022) Jada O’Neill X Maniscooler release infectious single ‘Can I Just’ The Stumble Upon. [Online] Available at: https://www. thestumbleupon.com/jada-oneill-x-maniscooler-torelease-infectious-single-can-i-just/ (Accessed: 5 August 2022)

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ARTS AND CULTUR 46

Arts and Culture

RE

Within their careers Black artists often have to embody multiple roles, as innovators, activists and leaders. Generations of Black British dancers have forged their own creative identities, with what it means to map the Black lived experience in Europe and how technology can be used to increase accessibility and tell stories in new and exciting ways.

Practices of Rooting and Spaces of Performative Becoming: Establishing British Caribbean Diasporic Identity through Dance An Introduction — Tia-Monique Uzor Black Digital Dance Revolution — Georgina Payne Leading Whilst Black — Hilary Carty

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PRACTICES OF ROOTING AND SPACES OF PERFORMATIVE BECOMING: ESTABLISHING BRITISH CARIBBEAN DIASPORIC IDENTITY THROUGH DANCE - AN INTRODUCTION MY DESIRE TO DANCE LED ME HERE. I AM IN THE SECOND YEAR OF MY UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE IN DANCE AND DRAMA SITTING IN A DANCE HISTORY SEMINAR GROUP. I LISTEN TO THE LECTURER AS THEY, ONCE AGAIN, DIVULGE INFORMATION ON ANOTHER WHITE EUROPEAN CHOREOGRAPHER AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON BRITISH DANCE. I TRY TO STAY FOCUSED – KEEP MY MIND FROM WONDERING – BUT IT ISN’T WORKING. WHERE ARE ALL THE BROWN-SKINNED CHOREOGRAPHERS? 48

Arts and Culture Practices of Rooting and Spaces of Performative Becoming: Establishing British Caribbean Diasporic Identity through Dance - An Introduction — Tia-Monique Uzor

Knowing the significance of dance within African and African Diasporic communities as a means for imagining the future and survival, I questioned why the artistic productions of brown-skinned choreographers and their narratives were not being discussed. I left the class, and the questions came with me. I wondered how a person like me, a British Caribbean Diasporic woman might exist within the British dance space. A space that did not truly comprehend what dance meant to us. What it meant to me. I stand in this world as a child of Jamaican and Bajan parents who, having been brought up in England, has embodied the complexity of a multiplicitous postcolonial identity. Like many dancers from my community, I have struggled with being neither British, Caribbean, nor African. As British Caribbean Diasporic people we dance in the liminal space of the inbetween of all these identities, drawing from them what we will; we are rooting ourselves in the fragments left by the fractures of a colonial disease that has affected us all.

Christina Manyang (2019). Photographer Alvin Balemesa/Unsplash.

In this short article I introduce my doctoral research.

When I reflect on the questions that I was asking back in my second year of university, conducting this study was clearly an inevitable part of my journey as a trained dancer.

My doctoral thesis argues that the choreography of British Caribbean Diasporic artists creates spaces of identity formation and negotiation onstage through performance.

Fusing scholarship in Caribbean Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Dance Studies, and Cultural Studies, I analyse the solo performances of four case study artists and conceptualise the performance of their artwork as “spaces of performative becoming” through which they produce their identities. The research develops new insights into how British Caribbean Diasporic identity is produced through choreography in addition to generating new historical and movement analyses of British Caribbean Diasporic artists who have not previously been considered in detail within dance scholarship.

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Knowing the significance of dance within African and African Diasporic communities as a means for imagining the future and survival, I questioned why the artistic productions of brown-skinned choreographers and their narratives were not being discussed. I left the class, and the questions came with me. I wondered how a person like me, a British Caribbean Diasporic woman might exist within the British dance space.

I specifically chose to look at the work and practices of independent dance artists. This allows for insight into the personal narratives and histories that inform the solo work of these artists and therefore provides a more explicit link to identity than the choreographic productions of dance companies, as artists have more creative freedom and are not bound by the company movement style or technical details.

H Patten and Greta Mendez make up the first generation of case study artists. The first generation are characterised as dance artists who began creating in Britain during the period of the 1970s -1990s. This was a significant period in terms of dance and for the British Caribbean Diasporic community. It was at this time that the UK saw the formation of almost eighty dance companies that were interested in traditional Caribbean and African dances. It was within this generation of British Caribbean Diasporic people that the children of those who had arrived on the SS Windrush and other ships like it, decades before, began to align to Black British identities, rather than the West Indian identities of their parents. This was also the time where dance throughout Europe and the UK was becoming more experimental, with the New Dance1 movement occurring in the 1970s, changing the face of dance permanently.

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The second-generation of case study artists are Jamila Johnson-Small and Akeim Toussaint Buck. This generation can be identified as those artists who began working after the surge of funding for dance that was present in the eighties and nineties had dissipated and the multi-cultural agenda of the government waned. They are those artists who began creating and producing work during the 1990s.

It is during this generation that the Black British community became more visible within public life, having a presence on television, in sports, and within politics.

To consider how choreographic practices of movement work to establish identity, I form a methodological framework which includes the movement analysis of four solo dance pieces by the artists concerned, personal narratives collected through interviews, movement exchanges that have occurred between myself and the artists, and the social, political, and historical contexts in which these artists have been creating. Additionally, the research adopts a postcolonial approach to consider British Caribbean Diasporic identities and the case study artists’ choreography within the global context of its geography and history. In doing this the research seeks to make hidden narratives visible and tell the stories of those that are implicated in the legacy of colonial rule from a perspective other than that of the coloniser, as Leela Gandhi puts it, “[…] to sound the muted voice of the truly oppressed” (Gandhi, 1998, p.2).

Arts and Culture Practices of Rooting and Spaces of Performative Becoming: Establishing British Caribbean Diasporic Identity through Dance - An Introduction — Tia-Monique Uzor

The consequences of the Atlantic Slave Trade and colonisation means that there is no return.

The interdisciplinary framework of the research draws on theorists from Caribbean Studies, Cultural Studies, Dance Studies and Postcolonial Studies, including the work of Stuart Hall (1990; 1995; 1999; 2015), Edouard Glissant (1989; 1997; 2013), Homi Bhabha (1994), Paul Gilroy (1993; 1996), W E B Du Bois (1903), Rex Nettleford (1990; 1993; 2003), Yvonne Daniel (2011) and L’Antoinette Stines (2014). The framework places movement and dance practices at the centre of these areas of study and considers how identity construction and affirmation occurs within the British Caribbean Diasporic context through the body.

Essential to my methodology is a practice-based approach that expands my own embodied understanding of Black dance forms. Using my expertise as a trained dancer in Africanist and Western Contemporary dance forms and my associated knowledge, I develop a body-centred practicebased interviewing method out of a need to understand more intimately the relationship between choreographed movement and identity, and to support my interdisciplinary approach. Creating a system of exchange between myself and the artist I go beyond established interview methods which contributes a deep and embodied understanding to my analysis. This way of utilising movement and conversation is innovative and makes methodological advances in both Dance and Black Studies.

In my adoption of the term rooting, it is imperative that we move away from roots, away from images of unseen structures beneath the ground that anchor a tree. This trope has been labelled redundant by postcolonial and cultural studies theorists who rightly assert that this particular conception of roots is one that seeks a point of origin, a map that will point us to the source. For creolised identities such as the British Caribbean Diasporic one, it is not possible to pinpoint an original source, an untarnished Africa (if it ever was) in which we can find the very essence of our beings that does not exist. The consequences of the Atlantic Slave Trade and colonisation means that there is no return.

Instead, I propose the notion of rooting conceptualised through the rhizome, a stem that sends out both roots and shoots from its nodes (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Glissant, 1997). The rhizome recognises that rooting of creolised identities are in a state of constant flux, seeking out ways in which to nourish and adapt to the environment. This is very different from the “tree or root” which seeks a point and “fixes an order” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p.5). For British Caribbean Diasporic identities, the rhizome model embodies a connected multiplicity as it moves from Africa to the Caribbean, to Europe and beyond. It does not point back to a source but allows us to trace where we have been.

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Analysis of such movement tells the hidden narratives of those who have gone before her, and those who are yet to come, my grandmother, my mother, my daughter.

The engagement in practices of rooting is central to this research. For British Caribbean Diasporic identities this sounds like Grime, Lovers Rock, and London Jamaican, reads like White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2001), smells like rice and peas with Yorkshire puddings, and moves like a tall, brown-skinned dancer on stage, breathing heavily; stepping back she falls into the ground, and undulates on her way back up, with a snaking of her hips. Standing, her right leg is turned out and on demi-pointe, her left-foot flexed; circling her arms around her head there is a vibration in her upper torso. Her dance encapsulates a complex aesthetic journey, analysing choreographic practices of rooting reveals the embodiment of negotiation of a multiplicity of identity through past, present and future (See Bhabha, 2004).

Analysis of such movement tells the hidden narratives of those who have gone before her, and those who are yet to come, my grandmother, my mother, my daughter.

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It became evident with the Windrush Scandal in the UK 2 , that British Caribbean Diasporic identities and people are not as secure as we believed. For a community that has yet to completely belong in the UK, but have been alienated from the Caribbean, these recent revelations are evidence of the importance of considering how practices of rooting, and more specifically choreographic practices of rooting identity, produce resistance, revelation, and affirmation.

My doctoral research positions the choreography of British Caribbean Diasporic dance artists as both valuable artistic contributions and crucial spaces for negotiating the complexities of Black British identities. As Min-ha says when talking about her concept of writing from within … “I write to show myself showing people who show myself my own showing” (Minh-ha, 1991). What started as a question in a dance history class has led to a rich exploration and analysis of movement from an embodied centre, which avoids the ignorant and inaccurate theorising of Black artists’ work.

Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Four Twins, 1985. Courtesy of Autograph, London.

Arts and Culture Practices of Rooting and Spaces of Performative Becoming: Establishing British Caribbean Diasporic Identity through Dance - An Introduction — Tia-Monique Uzor

References Bhabha, H.K. (1994) The location of culture. London: Routledge.

Bhabha, H.K. (2004) The Location of Culture. In: RIVKIN, J. and RYAN, M. (eds.) Literary theory: an anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 936–945.

Daniel, Y. (2011) Caribbean and Atlantic diaspora dance: igniting citizenship. Urbana, Ill: University of Illinois Press.

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903) The Souls of Black Folk.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gentleman, A. (2018) The children of Windrush: ‘I’m here legally, but they’re asking me to prove I’m British’. The Guardian, 15 Apr. Gilroy, P. (1996) Route Work: The Black Atlantic and the Politics of Exile. In: Chambers, I. and Curti, L. (eds.) The Postcolonial Question: Common Skies, Divided Horizons. GB: Routledge Ltd, pp. 17–29.

Gilroy, P. (1993) The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Harvard University Press.

Glissant, 1928-2011, Édouard (1989) Caribbean discourse: selected essays. United States.

Jordan, S. (1992) Striding out: aspects of contemporary and new dance in Britain. London: Dance Books.

Malkki, L. (1992) National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees. Cultural Anthropology, 7(1), pp. 24–44.

Minh-Ha, T. (1991) When the moon waxes red: representation, gender and cultural politics. London; New York; Routledge.

Nettleford, R. (1990) Afro-Caribbean Dance. Dancing Times.

Nettleford, R. (2003) Caribbean Cultural Identity: The Case of Jamaica - An Essay in Cultural Dynamics.

Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers.

Nettleford, R.M. (1993) Inward stretch, outward reach: a voice from the Caribbean. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Smith, Z. (2001) White Teeth. Penguin UK. Spivak, G.C. and Harasym, S. (1990) The Postcolonial critic: interviews, strategies, dialogues.

London;New York; Routledge.

Stines, L. (2014) Soul Casings: A Journey from Classical Ballet to the CARIMOD Daaance Technique L’Antech. Jamaica: L’Antoinette Stines Publishing.

Glissant, E. (1997) The Poetics of Relation. WING, B. (ed.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Glissant, E. (2013) Towards Caribbeanness. In: KAMUGISHA, A. (ed.) Caribbean Political Thought.

Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, pp. 395–401.

Hall, S. (1995) Negotiating Caribbean Identities.

New Left review, (209), pp. 3–14.

Footnotes 1.

Occurring from the late sixties until around the mid-nineties, the New Dance movement rejected the formalism of modern dance instead favoured experimental forms of performing and creating dances, expanding ideas of what dance could be. See: Jordan, 1992 for more.

2.

In 2018, a report by The Guardian revealed how the British Government were wrongly detaining, deporting and denying the rights of British Citizens of Caribbean descent as a result of its 2012 “hostile environment” Immigration policy, see: (Gentleman, 2018)

Hebdige, D. (1987) Cut ‘n’ mix: culture, identity and Caribbean music. London: Methuen.

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BLACK DIGITAL DANCE REVOLUTION “YOU CAN’T BE WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE” - MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

CREATING A SPACE FOR THOSE TO BE SEEN AND THE RESOURCE FOR THOSE THAT WANT TO BE, IS THE HIGHLIGHT AND PURPOSE OF THE BLACK DIGITAL DANCE REVOLUTION. 2020 - THE YEAR OF VISION AND TRUTH, THE WORLD STOOD STILL, AND WITNESSED SEVERAL REVELATIONS, BUT KNOWN TO THOSE IT IMPACTED; COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD STOOD SHOULDER TO SHOULDER, HISTORY ALMOST REPEATING ITSELF, A DEMAND FOR CHANGE - THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY DIGITAL REVOLUTION BEGAN.

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Tabanka Dance Ensemble Siren Calls: To an Illusive Journey at Let’s Dance International Frontiers (2022) Photographer Stuart Hollis / Hollis Photography UK on behalf of Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.

Arts and Culture Black Digital Dance Revolution — Georgina Payne

Black Digital Dance Revolution is a nationally significant project, exploring how digital and physical interfaces can be integrated to push the boundaries of how artistic work is created. Black consumers are now becoming the creators, but most importantly setting the trends and culture of social media 1. Black creators are at the top of their game, creating new trends, educating, entertaining, raising awareness to the injustices of the world. However, with all of this comes the frustrations as algorithms set their work back, their work gets stolen and is not being given the same respect as their non-Black counterparts. The way we view the digital world yesterday or even today, will change tomorrow. Constant evolving technology, the ever-expanding digital footprint, the social normality and acceptance of an increased internet usage and the rise of social media platforms favouring video content to capture the consumers attention faster. This will all play a part in how we view the work we create for Black Digital Dance Revolution, questioning how do our artists’ work sit within these platforms but also our own? But most importantly how do we protect the legacy of past and future digital dance work?

We aspire to engage with choreographers, dancers, dance academics and enthusiasts but also those that are starting their dance journey. We are building stronger relationships and networks across organisations in the UK dance sector and establishing a living legacy for Black dance. Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage (Leicester) are working with regional partners: Northern School of Contemporary Dance (Leeds), Dance City (Newcastle), Dance Umbrella (London) and beyond.

Now more than ever it is important for artists to take ownership of public spaces, whether they are structures of power, places to gather or historic landmarks.

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As the project grows Let’s Dance in the City will continue to draw on the dance and location heritage of other cities across the UK to develop a programme of digital based short films and continue to explore the gaze of what it means for Black bodies to have a sense of ownership of public spaces.

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Arts and Culture Black Digital Dance Revolution — Georgina Payne

Black Digital Dance Revolution launched with #BlackBoyJoyGone, a BFI Doc Society funded hybrid documentary by and for Black men on mental health, sexual trauma and finding strength through brotherhood.

Directed by Ashley Karrell and Isaac Ouro-Gnao, blending interviews, poetry, dance and storytelling, it captures the lives, realities, and the hopeful perspectives of men in the North, the Midlands and London in the United Kingdom.

Screened at Serendipity’s Dialogue Box, the documentary was screened along with a roundtable discussion.

Continuing the momentum of the launch, Let’s Dance in the City, three short dance films where dancers responded to the energy of the city to which they are connected, started with Leicester, which was shared throughout Let’s Dance International Frontiers 2022 (LDIF22). Now more than ever it is important for artists to take ownership of public spaces, whether they are structures of power, places to gather or historic landmarks. Helder Delgado moved across Leicester from Town Hall Square to Jubilee Square, navigating the streets and pigeons. Tia-Monique Uzor danced in the rain at Leicester’s clock tower, as members of the public looked on and Jessica Walker responded to the history and spirit of Bishop Street Methodist Church.

As the project grows Let’s Dance in the City will continue to draw on the dance and location heritage of other cities across the UK to develop a programme of digital based short films and continue to explore the gaze of what it means for Black bodies to have a sense of ownership of public spaces.

This October during Black History Month 2022, Interpretation - Siren Calls: To an Illusive Journey will be touring Leicester, Leeds, Newcastle and London. It was originally commissioned by Serendipity as a site-specific work to launch LDIF22. Featuring a beautiful and evocative score composed by Philip Herbert, the music for string quartet considers echoes of the past, hopes of the future and the density of the middle passage. The commission sought to unpack how different choreographic responses embodied the experiences of the Caribbean migration in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Monique Jonas and Thomas Prestø responded to this challenge and their choreography encapsulates the strength, tenacity and spirit, whilst recognising the diversity of Caribbean heritage and the unity that the African Caribbean community created when starting a new life in the UK. The dance documentary will showcase both the energy of different choreographers and spaces, but also the personal stories that have shaped each artists’ contribution to this multifaceted commission.

Black Digital Dance Revolution is nearing the end of its first year, and what a year it has been. In January 2023, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery will host an exhibition exploring Leicester’s dance history and in time each partner city will host their own Black Digital Dance exhibition that relates back to their city’s heritage. Throughout the year we are commissioning choreographers to create new work, uncovering archival dance footage and hosting a series of conferences, roundtables and discussions.

Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage looks forward to you joining us on this exciting and challenging journey, as we explore and create new innovative work for the digital age.

Footnotes 1.

Monique Jonas in Siren Calls: To an Illusive Journey at Let’s Dance International Frontiers (2022) Photographer Stuart Hollis / Hollis Photography UK on behalf of Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.

Cyca, M., (2022) 23 Important TikTok Stats Marketers Need to Know in 2022. Hootsuite.

[Article] Available at: https://blog.hootsuite. com/tiktok-stats/ (Accessed:22 July 2022)

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LEADING WHILST BLACK IT HAS BEEN PLEASANTLY SURPRISING IN THE PAST YEAR TO SEE THE RECURRING PRESENCE OF SENIOR BLACK LEADERS ACROSS THE FULL RANGE OF TV PROGRAMMES - HEALTH PROFESSIONALS, FINANCIAL ADVISERS, ECONOMISTS, ACADEMICS... THERE FOR THE WORLD TO SEE. UNDOUBTEDLY, ONE OF THE MANY POSITIVE OUTCOMES OF THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT, IS THAT THE DEMAND FOR REPRESENTATION HAS SUCCEEDED IN MAKING VISIBLE THESE ESTEEMED EXPERTS – WHO HAD BEEN THERE ALL ALONG. BUT WE HAD NOT SEEN THEM. THEIR VOICES WERE NOT HEARD AND THEIR EVIDENT COMMAND OF THEIR FIELDS OF EXPERTISE WAS OBSCURED BY THE ABSENCE OF OPPORTUNITY. NOW THEY REGULARLY FILL OUR SCREENS WITH TOPICS BOTH POPULAR AND ESOTERIC; SPECIALISED AND GENERAL… REFRESHINGLY “NORMAL”.

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Arts and Culture Leading whilst Black — Hilary Carty

It’s long overdue. But it is happening, and it is encouraging for future generations. For we know the quiet pride of seeing oneself reflected in success. We understand the lifted aspirations of young people when their natural ambition and curiosity is stimulated to go further, higher, faster than those before them. They want to, and will, rise to the challenge.

Are we in the cultural sectors doing likewise? Are we championing the full breadth of talent across all fields of endeavour? Are we profiling the work of those whose contribution to sector innovation, animation and growth underpins our outcomes and advancements?

Stand tall. Step forward. Speak out.

For, somewhat ironically, the very same leaders who were held back in the previous era are just the ones who have gathered the resilience and competences to withstand the dynamics of today’s volatile environment. “Diverse” leaders, those defined by their differences of gender, colour, disability, sexuality… know well the scrutiny of scepticism and doubt. They have answered the unspoken questions that censure enthusiasm. They have brave-faced the un-wanted and swallowed the unreasonable. They have found creative ways to stay engaged, build resilience, show generosity and patience, and to battle for change. Time now to evidence their leadership and demonstrate that change.

Race Today Collective. Photographer Neil Kenlock.

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It’s long overdue. But it is happening, and it is encouraging for future generations. For we know the quiet pride of seeing oneself reflected in success. We understand the lifted aspirations of young people when their natural ambition and curiosity is stimulated to go further, higher, faster than those before them. They want to, and will, rise to the challenge.

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Crowd near Drill Hall on the first day of the Treason Trial, Johannesburg (1956). Photograph by Eli Weinberg.

Time Media Collection, Museum Africa, Johannesburg.

Arts and Culture Leading whilst Black — Hilary Carty

Tapping into the experiences and perspectives of diverse cultural leaders provides a rich source of learning for leadership skills and competences – not only for those leaders with diverse characteristics, but for all who aspire to lead the sector to a new and different future. At Clore Leadership we commissioned Gaylene Gould, creative director and founder of The Space to Come1 to devise to Brilliant Routes a programme of curated, discursive and restorative spaces for Black Asian and ethnically diverse leaders, to underpin their leadership journeys with new and active connections, for visibility, for reference and for affirmation. Note also the inspirational bibliography of work featuring in Museum of Colour2 founded by the Clore Fellow, Samenua Sesher. Such spaces are just two examples that complement the common narrative of cultural leadership – let’s share them all, so that standing tall, stepping forward and speaking out can become less perilous and more rewarding.

Leadership moves. COVID-19 has taught us that almost everything is dynamic; “norms” are transient; and the boundaries of control are narrower than they might seem.

Effective cultural leaders require a dynamic range of attributes, competences and skills - to inspire, connect and navigate; to show courage, passion and energy. Effective leaders see themselves as change-makers - resourceful and optimistic, collaborative and resilient; inspiring and full of conviction; and critically, courageous enough to realise their vision, even in the glare of the leadership gaze.

For me three essential components are critical: • Values-based Leadership – knowing your values and understanding what makes your difference • Adaptive Leadership – flexibility, agility, connectedness to the people, organisations and the dynamism of contemporary culture • Inclusive Leadership – a fundamental, grounded and principled approach that embeds equity, diversity and accessibility as primary considerations.

Take the space.

No need to go it alone. Get and stay connected to peer groups of diverse leaders who will walk alongside and share the journey, so that the movement for change maintains its momentum and runs its full course; until we can see, feel and touch the change as natural, normal and fair.

Footnotes 1.

http://www.thespacetocome.com

2.

www.museumofcolour.org.uk

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VOICES O INDEPEN 62

Voices of Independence

OF NDENCE This issue explores the theme of Independence: A New Time, A New Era, coinciding with the sixtieth anniversary of independence in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Uganda and the first anniversary of Barbados becoming a republic. Referenced throughout this issue, this section is dedicated to this theme, our Voices of Independence offer nuanced reflections, from international politics through to personal sufficiency. Independence by its very nature is a concept to be defined and redefined.

The Intimacy of Independence — Caroline Johnson The Road to Independence — Gus John Little Britain - The Republic — Sandra Pollock Afrofuturist Autonomy — Henri Tauliaut

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THE INTIMACY OF INDEPENDENCE I LOVE GOSSIP. IT’S TRUE AND I AM UNASHAMED. IT’S THE WAY I GOT THROUGH THE LONG NIGHTS AT MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER IN NEW YORK CITY WITH MY MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER. IN THOSE MOMENTS, I STARTED TO INVENT WORLDS AND STORIES FROM THE GOSSIP THAT MY FAMILY USED AS ENTERTAINMENT TO PASS THE TIME. IT WAS OUR FORM OF BONDING. THEY TAUGHT ME WHAT IT IS TO BE A STORYTELLER A LOVE THAT WOULD FORM MUCH OF MY PERSONHOOD AND ARTISTRY. THOSE STORIES HELPED ME PROCESS THE WEIGHT OF MORTALITY, THE COMPLEX INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS THAT EXIST IN LARGE FAMILIES AND THE VALUE OF SUSTAINING ORAL TRADITIONS, WHICH HOLD INTEGRAL LESSONS THAT ENSURE OUR SURVIVAL IN THIS WORLD HEALING FROM AND STILL FIGHTING AGAINST COLONIALISM AND WHITE SUPREMACY. 64

Voices of Independence The Intimacy of Independence — Caroline Johnson

What was not explored in these stories, however, was what it means to be an openly queer person in a traditional Jamaican family. Nor what it means to break out of the expectations placed upon daughters of Diasporas.

It was somewhere in the time and space of being away from my original home, while in college, that my journey to independence truly began. For some, the first meaning of independence that comes to mind is in regard to a country’s sovereignty, but for me, it’s a person’s process of establishing a sense of self, exploring individual freedom and finding worth and security in knowing the dreams they possess are worth cultivating. In a way, the journey towards independence for both country and person require a revolution - one that often involves distancing from or breaking formative relationships, disobedience, chaos and strength. For both person and country, independence manifests out of the need to survive. In my case, it was so that I could honour myself as a 20 something year old Black, queer, woman artist who had set out to explore the complex issues of life through a range of mediums cultivated through the years - primarily through art and writing.

Marsha P Johnson at the Baltimore Gay Pride (1991). Photographer Patsy Lynch/Alamy.

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Those stories helped me process the weight of mortality, the complex intergenerational relationships that exist in large families and the value of sustaining oral traditions, which hold integral lessons that ensure our survival in this world healing from and still fighting against colonialism and white supremacy.

It’s in that process of finding independence that people gravitate towards one another, seeking a friend to feel understood. To discover a person or group of people to fill in the puzzle pieces they were missing during their life journey, and to heal with love, care and acceptance from the beautiful, but sometimes heart-breaking transition from a past, more dependent version of self. It was in this time away from my original family, I cultivated my own family.

The people I gravitated towards were coming too into their independence and we found each other to make that transition less isolating. As people from Ghana to Guyana, Senegal to Saint Kitts, Ethiopia to Ecuador and so much more, we found each other so we didn’t have to take on the world by ourselves. There’s a light and joy that community brings, especially for people who possess interlocking identities.

It’s through community, I became not only more of an advocate for myself, but for those around me. Sometimes community manifests in organisations or meeting places where individuals come together with the intention of advocacy and change-making. One that comes to mind is the Women in Africa and the African Diaspora conference which continued the legacy of the International Council of Women by fighting against oppression of women on a multi-tiered front. They addressed the plight of women from a multiplicity of backgrounds, identities and positions in society, such as rural women, migrant workers, women who have suffered from sexual violence and more. I have seen that when Black women advocate for themselves, they

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change law, theory and practice on a global scale, as race, class, gender, health, sexuality and other factors are brought to the table so that the world can move closer towards equity and liberation. Advocacy, though, does not only come from large organisations or gestures. It comes for me from the movement of a dance that tells the story of a person’s life, from books written by people who needed a pen and paper so they could take the weight of their reality off their heart - all while changing the hearts of people countries away, sometimes without even realising - and so many other mediums. All art can advocate, with the intention of sharing one’s humanity.

If we’re lucky enough, the spaces in which we share our humanity can be safe, especially when respect, vulnerability, honesty and care are placed at the forefront of conversation.

In found families and communities where relationships are choices rather than a pact made by blood, safe spaces can provide people the courage to address issues and pursue uncomfortable conversations to heal and grow within intergenerational familial structures. I have found through community that I have gained the confidence to start honouring my full humanity as a Black queer woman artist in a traditional Jamaican family, knowing that support, love and understanding will always be out there for me and hopefully, with patience, in the place I grew my roots too.

Voices of Independence The Intimacy of Independence — Caroline Johnson

In found families and communities where relationships are choices rather than a pact made by blood, safe spaces can provide people the courage to address issues and pursue uncomfortable conversations to heal and grow within intergenerational familial structures.

In my independence-seeking, I have come across people before me who shared their art and made me feel loved, seen and inspired. It’s the Audre Lordes, the Toni Morrisons, the James Baldwins, Alvin Aileys, Lorraine Hansburys, Marsha P Johnsons and Barbara Jordans of the world who created a world for me to be unafraid of recognising my full humanity and sharing it with the world, so that I one day will not become a part of a generation whose voices were lost due to fear or erasure, but rather a generation that’s heard, amplified and change-making.

It’s essential for people to honour their independence, as the puzzle piece of their personhood will become a part of a lineage of knowledge that creates a fuller picture with deeper understanding. This way the stories can be used for lessons, for inspiration, for their legacy to feel seen and heard - rather than alone and lost - and to be given the tools to navigate a world that is not kind to marginalised communities. Just as my foremothers provided me with stories and experiences, they could help me become the person I am today. I hope with my story, I too can share my humanity for generations of my family, both found and blood, to learn from, flourish and have the courage to seek their independence.

Lorraine Hansberry (1960). Afro Newspaper/Gado/Archive Photos/Getty Images.

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THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE EARLIER THIS YEAR PROFESSOR GUS JOHN DELIVERED SERENDIPITY INSTITUTE FOR BLACK ARTS AND HERITAGE’S ANNUAL WINDRUSH DAY LECTURE, ENCAPSULATED IN THE FOLLOWING PAPER.

COMRADES AND FRIENDS LET ME FIRST THANK SERENDIPITY INSTITUTE FOR BLACK ARTS AND HERITAGE FOR THE INVITATION TO DELIVER THIS YEAR’S LECTURE. YOUR INVITATION PLACES ME IN THE AUGUST COMPANY OF YOUR PREVIOUS LECTURERS, PROFESSOR STEPHEN SMALL AND DR BEVERLEY BRYAN, BOTH SCHOLAR ACTIVISTS WHO LIKE ME SPAN HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM IN BRITAIN AND ELSEWHERE AND THE PERENNIAL STRUGGLE TO DECOLONISE ACADEMIA AND RECONNECT THE ACADEMY WITH GRASS ROOTS MOVEMENTS AND THE STRUGGLES OF ORDINARY FOLK FOR BREAD, JUSTICE, FREEDOM AND A SUSTAINABLE PLANET. 68

Voices of Independence The Road to Independence — Gus John

Mr I S de Souza, the Jamaican Head of Mission, and his wife arriving at Westminster Abbey at a service to mark the attainment of independence by Jamaica. Photograph PA Images/Alamy.

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Cultures of oppression breed cultures of resistance. Throughout history, however, those doing the oppressing invariably seek to dictate the forms of resistance that are deemed acceptable and that can be contained by the force of law, by coercive compliance or by militarisation. Thankfully, art and culture have always found imaginative ways of circumventing those constraints.

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Girls wearing different varieties of Jamaican national dress during independence celebrations (1962). Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Voices of Independence The Road to Independence — Gus John

That said, I consider myself a most unlikely candidate for delivering a Windrush Day lecture, because the very word “Windrush” grates upon me and its adoption in the lexicon of race relations and the narrative of Black lives in post-war Britain represents a massive distortion of the relationship between Britain and its colonial legacy, with racism at the centre of that legacy. Happily, however, Serendipity shares those concerns and seeks to situate the historical and contemporaneous Black presence in Britain outside that illconceived and, as I will argue, banal narrative.

Serendipity, as an arts and heritage charity, focuses upon artistic and cultural practice and products coming out of the African and African Caribbean Diaspora. It rightly describes itself as the custodians of a growing archive of materials relating to the Black presence in the East Midlands and Black arts.

Serendipity in its essence bears testimony to the fact that the creative imagination and the artistic and cultural practices of the African, Caribbean and Asian Diaspora in Britain have a provenance, richness and history that predates western epistemologies, western definitions of aesthetics and of the relationship between art and space and spirituality and belonging, not to mention racism and notions of white supremacy. In other words, although we engage our creative imagination and our artistic and cultural practices in that symbiotic relationship between culture and politics, making cultural resistance integral to political struggle for bread, justice and freedom, for human liberation, for human rights, for climate justice and against social injustice, racism, Afrophobia, Islamophobia, political repression and barbarism in all its forms, essentially that creative imagination and the artistic and cultural products that flow from it give expression to our being in the world and help us to make sense of being in the world and our relationships with one another and with the forces that govern our lives.

Cultures of oppression breed cultures of resistance.

Throughout history, however, those doing the oppressing invariably seek to dictate the forms of resistance that are deemed acceptable and that can be contained by the force of law, by coercive compliance or by militarisation.

Thankfully, art and culture have always found imaginative ways of circumventing those constraints.

So, I applaud all that Serendipity stands for and does, in continuity with traditions and struggles that pre-date British imperialism and colonialism and that are diminished by banal concepts and constructs such as ‘the Windrush generation’.

Before I turn to the main theme, the ‘road to independence’, permit me to share some extracts from an Open Letter I sent to Michael Gove MP and Baroness Floella Benjamin, in response to an invitation they sent me to join them for the unveiling today of a Windrush Monument inside Waterloo Station in London.

The invitation stated that “the ceremony will celebrate the lives, contribution and legacy of those who came to the UK from the Caribbean from 1948 to 1971 and their descendants, culminating in the unveiling of this fitting monument, which can be embraced by future generations and the nation for decades to come”.

Significantly, this monument is being unveiled in the same month that Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, celebrates 70 years as British monarch. During those 70 years, the British state has perpetuated a culture of racism that has violated the human rights of Black Commonwealth and of British born and naturalised citizens, marring their lives and killing thousands of them, directly through brutalisation while in the custody of the state and indirectly through the impact of racism on their life chances and their health and wellbeing.

Just one week after I received the invitation, The Guardian ran a story of a report on the Windrush Scandal which the Home Office is said to be refusing to release and which argued, among other damning findings, that the scandal was the culmination of “30 years of racist immigration laws”.

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Vice President Lyndon B Johnson at the Parade Ground in Kingston during Jamaican Independence Celebrations (1962). Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy.

Voices of Independence The Road to Independence — Gus John

As if they did not have enough adventure on the killing fields of Europe.

Throughout those 30 years and more, Her Imperial Majesty presided at the opening of Parliament and ushered in immigration legislation that was more racist in every iteration, including the legislation in 2014 and 2016 that framed “the hostile environment”.

In 1945, the Fifth Pan-African Congress was held in Manchester. That congress, attended by pan-Africanists, anti-colonial campaigners and leaders of workers’ movements across the Caribbean, made a number of demands of the British state, including that Britain should take action against the racism Black people were suffering, especially those who had risked life and limb and given loyal service to the British Crown in the Second World War. The principal message to Britain from that congress was that those subjects of the British Crown who risked their lives in defeating Nazism should not have to face racism and Nazism in the very country they had fought to defend.

That was two years before the Steam Ship Almanzora arrived in Southampton from the Caribbean on 21 December 1947, carrying 200 ex-service personnel. Six months later, the SS Windrush docked at Tilbury. Among its 500 passengers were many whom, like those on the Almanzora, Britain had abandoned to their fate once they were returned to the Caribbean after demob, thus necessitating their return to this country in search of bread and opportunity to rebuild their lives. It is those very citizens who, even though they were being killed often in greater numbers than their white counterparts in theatres of war, were denied the same rights, rewards and awards as them. Because they were Black, they were not allowed to rise to the rank of “officer”, despite phenomenal acts of bravery in some cases. On demob, they had been returned to the colonies to a life of penury, many having had to place themselves at the mercy of their communities, especially if they were still overcoming physical injuries and mental trauma.

Many of the so-called Windrush Generation will have lived cheek by jowl with them as they joined that extensive reserve pool of labour Britain had created and left impoverished across the Caribbean.

Yet, in a leaflet publicising the Windrush Anniversary Service in Westminster Abbey in June 2018, the organisers claimed that those who arrived on the Windrush “came seeking adventure”, as if they suddenly decided to club together and come on safari to Britain. As if they did not have enough adventure on the killing fields of Europe.

The Windrush narrative refers lazily to “the Windrush generation” as if they had no past and no experience with Britain before arriving in Britain. It also presents those who came in 1948 and after as pioneers who clocked up notable accomplishments in a free and open society in which they enjoyed equal opportunities for their considerable talents to flourish.

There is over-emphasis on the contribution and legacy of those who came from the Caribbean and on the extent to which we have helped to build modern Britain, but no mention of the fact that ours has been a perennial struggle against systemic racism, neo-fascism and English nationalism. As such, those who came in 1947 and 1948 have been in a continuity of struggle with the Caribbean and African Diaspora that had lived and struggled against colonialism and racism since the end of the nineteenth century, at least.

So, whatever grandiose notions those who constructed the Windrush hare and sent it coursing might have had, the SS Windrush was not the Mayflower and those whom it brought to Britain were not pilgrim fathers and mothers. They were from the Caribbean but not of the Caribbean. They had had a life experience with Britain before boarding that ship; an experience defined by imperialism, colonialism and racism.

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They were from the Caribbean but not of the Caribbean. They had had a life experience with Britain before boarding that ship; an experience defined by imperialism, colonialism and racism.

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Theresa May in Kenya (2018). Photographer Stefan Rousseau.

Voices of Independence The Road to Independence — Gus John

Notably, the Windrush made one single voyage from the Caribbean to London in June 1948 carrying 500 people.

Between then and 1962 when the British government passed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act to restrict open entry to its colonial citizens who were suddenly “coloured immigrants”, some 300,000 more had arrived on other ships or by air. In 1961 alone, in order to beat the impending ban that the 1962 legislation would impose, 125,000 arrived from the Caribbean. Their arrival sent shockwaves through the nation and huge swathes of the population demanded that their government should “keep Britain white”.

How, then, does the Windrush come to define the Caribbean population and its descendants in Britain for all time?

Suddenly, all Caribbean people and their descendants are designated as if the Windrush was some massive gene pool to which their ancestry could be traced. So, we have a Windrush festival of films, Windrush storytelling, Windrush cultural events and all the rest of it.

No doubt, the Windrush Commemoration Committee focuses on those who came from the Caribbean between the arrival of the S.S. Windrush in 1948 and 1971, rather than 1987 let’s say, because the Immigration Act 1971 effectively completed the process of racialising immigration, which the government had started in 1962 and built upon in 1968.

After 1971, there was no automatic “right of abode” and those seeking permanent residence had to demonstrate patrial links to Britain, or that they had been legally resident here for five years or more.

What is worse is that, whimsically and stealthily, the British government decided that its former citizens and colonial subjects whose countries had fought for and won their independence from British colonial rule were now nationals of independent sovereign states and therefore no longer entitled to the rights -such as they were - that were enjoyed by those “immigrants” whose countries were still ruled and governed by Britain and its colonial administrators. But, nobody told them. Instead, the government pulped the documents that would have proved their right of residence in Britain before their nations became independent. Hence, huge numbers of those people were caught in Theresa May’s “hostile environment” dragnet and the countries of which they became nationals after “flag and anthem” independence could do nothing about it.

Instead, shockingly, they have collaborated with the British government’s deportation and repatriation programme, accepting elders who spent most of their life in Britain, but whom the racist British state decided to repatriate in order to prove to its white electorate and the likes of Priti Patel, that it is hard on immigration and is expelling all those it determines, more often wrongly, have no right to be here.

We complain about the falsification and erasure of our history by Eurocentric historians with a colonial mindset.

But that entire Windrush narrative distorts the history of Caribbean engagement with Britain and of Britain’s relentless efforts to keep us out and prove to the “keep Britain white” electorate that we were not wanted.

So, if that monument unveiled earlier today celebrates the lives, contribution and legacy of those who came to the UK from the Caribbean (1948-1971), it is surely also a monument to the brutality of the British state in deporting undocumented Windrush folk who have lived all their lives in this country but were negligent in hanging on to their iconic blue British colonial passport and not regularising their British nationality; to Caribbean people who have so enriched life in Britain and contributed to its development into a modern multi-ethnic state. But that state is one which has an industrial prison complex where descendants of the Windrush generation are more populous than any other section of the population; where we are over-represented in most manifestations of social malaise and grossly underrepresented in positions of influence, decision making and the exercise of social and economic power, in government as in pretty much every societal institution. Needless to say, it would be utterly perverse and mindless for anyone to point to Badenoch, Kwarteng, Javid and, heaven forfend, Patel to challenge this characterisation of the British state.

Despite all of that, however, shamelessly and totally without compunction, the British government declared that it had no intention of engaging with the UN Declaration on the Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) and putting in place a programme of policies and actions consonant with the theme of Recognition, Justice and Development. In proclaiming the Decade, the UN cited: “the need to strengthen national, regional and international cooperation in relation to the full enjoyment of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights by people of African descent, and their full and equal participation in all aspects of society.”

Instead, the Johnson government engaged Tony Sewell to examine evidence of racial disparities and come up with a report which effectively said that irrespective of research evidence, government’s own statistics and communities’ perennial struggles for equal rights and justice, all was well in ‘ole Blighty’ and the government should hold firm and ignore the naysayers.

In my book and whilst acknowledging Basil Watson’s remarkable work, this is a monument to unforgivable political illiteracy and an entrenched colonial mindset.

What’s more, it is a monument to state racism, hypocrisy and hubris.

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Her Imperial Majesty, and no doubt Charles and William on her behalf, will continue adorning the so-called Windrush generation and their descendants with British Empire gongs, while systemic racism becomes more and more embedded in Britain, as if it has nothing whatsoever to do with them.

The danger is that it will have future generations of Britons, Black and white, and visitors from across the globe believing in the Windrush hype, with no awareness that the monument represents a complete falsification of the historical and contemporaneous relationship between the Caribbean community and Britain.

This Windrush narrative is fixed in aspic and creates no bridge between the struggles against racism and for equal rights and justice we have had to wage in this society over the last century and the efforts of those for whom we have made Britain home to build a future, where combating systemic racism does not remain their day-to-day reality.

Her Imperial Majesty, and no doubt Charles and William on her behalf, will continue adorning the so-called Windrush generation and their descendants with British Empire gongs, while systemic racism becomes more and more embedded in Britain, as if it has nothing whatsoever to do with them.

For all those reasons, I am as committed to removing “Windrush” from the lexicon as I am to removing BAME. Windrush is equally minoritising and like BME and BAME, it is in danger of recolonising British born Black citizens for all time as Windrush descendants.

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This brings me to the issue of independence.

What is so astonishing about the Windrush narrative is that it projects Britain as that benign nation state that facilitated us to be our best and give of our best, in a society where we were respected for what we were and for what we brought to the project of building a modern, developed society. The Windrush narrative eschews all consideration of systemic and structural racism, cultural, institutional and personal manifestations of racism. It does not talk about the intersection of labour from the Caribbean and white British labour that exhibited racism even within the organised workers’ movement. It does not talk about the race riots in Cardiff, London, Tyneside and Liverpool at the end of the First World War. It does not talk about the race riots in London in 1958, the murder of Kelso Cochrane in 1959, the murder of David Oluwale in Leeds in 1969; the birth of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, the West Indian Standing Conference, the British Black Panthers, the need for and growth of the Black Supplementary and Saturday School Movement; the ESN scandal of the 1960s to the 1990s, our struggles against the eugenicists and the biological racists who propounded theories of race and intelligence and used those as a justification for denying Black students their educational entitlement; it does not talk about decades of police abuse of power and brutalisation and criminalisation of Black folk, typically with the endorsement of a complicit judiciary; it does not talk about deaths in custody and the wholly unnatural tendency of Black folk, especially those suffering mental distress, to die whilst in the custody of the police.

Voices of Independence The Road to Independence — Gus John

In other words, you could be forgiven for thinking that the 30,000 newcomers who were tarred with the Windrush brush entered a parallel universe on arrival in Britain and simply used their talents to build a consensual, modern Britain with the hallmark of decency, racial and social justice, equality of opportunity and human rights. No need for struggle, no need to fight, no need to disturb, no need to hold a mirror up to the society and hold it to account for trampling upon our fundamental rights and ruining the life chances of our children. No need to demand that the debt Britain owed to us when it left us dispossessed and impoverished in the Caribbean should be made good both to us as the reserve pool of labour it had brought here and to those whom we left behind, who would have been in an even more parlous state but for our remittances and other forms of support. No need to remind Britain that we stand in continuity with the Pan Africanists and campaigners for an end to colonialism who had been demanding that Britain deal with the legacy of empire and with systemic racism as a defining component of that legacy, a good half century and more before the Windrush arrived.

Those pioneers who lived and worked, or/and studied in Britain in the late nineteenth century till well past the middle of the twentieth century and whose struggles those who came on the Windrush inevitably joined, were clear about a number of things. I shall mention just some.

One, that Africa must unite. Two, that it was incumbent upon African leaders to dismantle the settlement that European nations had arrived at when they divided up Africa into colonies at the Berlin conference (November 1884 – February 1885). That to do so, Africa needed to free itself from colonial rule and build independent sovereign states. That Africa could stem the underdevelopment orchestrated by imperialism and colonialism if it regained control of its natural resources and utilised them for nation building, to eliminate illiteracy and poverty and to raise the standard of living of all its citizens. That the greatest threat to achieving such goals was neo-colonialism and local political leaders chosen by the West and dancing in the shoes of the colonialists. That, therefore, the pitting of ethnic nationalities (which the colonists designated tribes) against one another, with each acting in their own interests rather than that of the nation as a whole, had to be resisted at all costs.

They had a vision of Africa unifying its global diaspora and utilising the talents and resources or that diaspora for the development of the Continent and its peoples across the globe, long before the African Union passed its Sixth Region declaration to that effect in Addis Ababa in 2003.

At the Fifth Pan African Congress in Manchester in 1945, therefore, national leaders and representatives of nation states from across Africa, the Caribbean and North America debated pathways to independence across the continent and in the Caribbean, as well as independent organisation in defence of rights and against racism in the USA, the UK and western Europe.

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In 1939, W Arthur Lewis, who would become St Lucia’s first Nobel Laureate, wrote his seminal work, Labour in the West Indies - the Birth of a Workers’ Movement, which was published as a Fabian pamphlet. In that book, Lewis gave an account of the general strikes and workers’ insurrections which spread like wildfire across the English-speaking Caribbean between 1935 and 1938, from St Kitts in 1935, to St Vincent (1935), St Lucia (1935, 1937), Barbados (1937), Trinidad (1937), British Guiana (1935, 1937) and Jamaica (1938).

Labour in the West Indies, published less than 10 years before the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, gives a truly shocking account of life in those islands and of the appalling conditions that sustained the plantation economy in the West Indies.

In his preface to the book, the trade unionist and Labour MP, Arthur Creech Jones, wrote: “We carry a grave responsibility for a colonial policy based on cheap labour and cheap raw materials….”

(Lewis, pp. 9) Arthur Lewis was writing 100 years after the emancipation of slavery. Creech Jones and other parliamentarians were debating reparations then and remarking on the scandal of compensation to owners of former enslaved Africans, while despite emancipation in 1834, the formerly enslaved were made to continue working as unpaid “apprentices” until 1938.

In 1944, Eric Williams published his seminal work Capitalism and Slavery, thus placing Lewis’ work in a wider structural and geopolitical context.

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50 years ago, Walter Rodney published his classic How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) More recently, we have seen the publication of Aime Cesaire’s Discourse on Colonialism (2001), Hilary Beckles’ How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean: A Reparation Response to Europe’s Legacy of Plunder and Poverty (2021) and Kojo Koram’s recently published Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire (2022) Against that background, the Windrush Committee’s claim in their call to prayer at Westminster Abbey in June 2018 to mark 70 years of Windrush, i.e., that “those who came on the Windrush in 1948 came seeking adventure” is not just banal, it is politically illiterate.

To conclude, let me make a few observations about independence in the context of the Caribbean and its colonial past.

By the time Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica won their independence in 1962, Britain was already closing its borders to its former colonial subjects in the Caribbean. It was unconcerned that despite the hoisting of their national flag and the singing of their dirge-like anthems, they were inheriting a colonial legacy not too dissimilar to that which Arthur Lewis and Arthur Creech Jones had described in 1939.

So, what did independence mean and with what mindset were those coming to Britain in the 1940s and later approaching British society?

They were coming to help rebuild a country that did not see itself as needing repair. Repair not only because of two devastating world wars in the space of 20 years, but because of the damage done to its people by its imperialist exploits and its definition of itself as white and superior.

Voices of Independence The Road to Independence — Gus John

For us as descendants of formerly enslaved Black folk in this country, as in the Caribbean and across the Global African Diaspora, the road to independence requires us to see religion, schooling and education, media and culture, organised and imposed by Europeans, as indoctrination.

Britain did not and still does not see the necessity to deal with the legacy of empire in order that it could better equip its young people of every ethnicity with the values, knowledge, understanding, skills and aptitudes that would enable them to build a future nation that has the hallmark of equity, justice and respect for human dignity and for human rights.

Ahmed Sekou Toure famously said: “Decolonization does not consist merely in liberating oneself from the presence of the colonizers: it must necessarily be completed by total liberation from the spirit of the “colonized”, that is to say, from all the evil consequences, moral, intellectual and cultural, of the colonial system.” (Sekou Toure, Conakry, 1959) This is unfinished business, both for the Caribbean and for us here in Britain. It is crucial, not least because we have made Britain home for so many Africans, too many of whom are ashamed of their heritage, ashamed of the language and spiritual traditions of their elders and yet, are like ships without a rudder in the shark infested waters of the United Kingdom.

It is worth remembering the immortal words of Marcus Garvey in this respect: “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind.”

For us as descendants of formerly enslaved Black folk in this country, as in the Caribbean and across the Global African Diaspora, the road to independence requires us to see religion, schooling and education, media and culture, organised and imposed by Europeans, as indoctrination. Indoctrination as a key component of a systematic process of erasure (African spiritual traditions; African cosmology, belief systems and cultural practices; capturing mind and spirit).

As an unrepentant apostle of Paulo Friere, I have a fundamental belief in the importance of conscientisation and of interrogating our taken-for-granted assumptions about being in the world and therefore about the realities of “the other”, especially given the dynamics of power, ideology and hegemony that so govern our social and economic relations.

The road to independence requires us to begin with ourselves, to deconstruct ourselves and our own identity formation, national origins, cultural assumptions, values base and level of knowledge of other peoples’ cultures, cultural and political histories and ways of being in the world.

In that way, rather than seeking validation from bankrupt systems, in whatever form, we could boldly affirm our right to have our rights respected, our entitlements delivered and our duty to work with young people to build a better future in this fractured society.

That is why I believe that intergenerational dialogue and cross-generational activism and self-empowerment is so crucial to our survival and our capacity to flourish and lead meaningful and fulfilled lives in this place.

Meanwhile, let us travel in hope!

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LITTLE BRITAIN THE REPUBLIC ONE OF THE BEST THINGS MY MOTHER DID FOR US WAS TO TAKE US TO LIVE IN BARBADOS. I DID NOT THINK SO AT THE TIME BECAUSE IT HAPPENED TO COINCIDE WITH SOME TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES IN MY CHILDHOOD. HOWEVER, THE BENEFIT OF THIS DECISION FOR ME, A LITTLE BLACK GIRL BORN AND BROUGHT UP IN LONDON, WAS THAT IT AFFORDED ME A DEEP LEVEL OF SELFUNDERSTANDING OF MY HISTORY AND WORTH.

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Voices of Independence Little Britain - The Republic — Sandra Pollock

Barbados was the first country in which I experienced Black men and women holding political power. In the UK, I didn’t see this. The UK representation of Black people was negative: a people always fighting for acceptance, recognition, and place. As a child I felt that British society didn’t even see Black people as the underdog, but under the dog.

I loved being in Barbados and still delight in going there now because I am not in the minority. I can see people that are just like me, and I don’t have to make excuses for my passion to achieve better things. There is connectedness. There is an expectation that as a human being you want to achieve the best you can. This is not frustrated just because of the colour of your skin.

The little island of Barbados, 167 square miles, was the birthplace of British slave society and the most ruthless, brutally colonised by Britain’s ruling elites. This was the place in the Caribbean where the British perfected the skill of breaking the African, where other enslavers came to see how it was best done. The enslavement efforts were so effective that Barbados became known as Little Britain.

Hilary McDonald Beckles writes:

“By the 1650s, England was grandly celebrating Barbados as its premier global investment.”

My time in Barbados was not without the evidence of colonial injustice. There continues to this day the commercial dominance of white inheritors of the wealth gained from the enslavement of Africans. The comparison of the living standards of white children of enslavers, and the povertyridden lifestyles of most children of the enslaved, many still living in chattel houses, is everywhere to be seen. I did not always have the words to articulate what I felt, other than it irritated me as I grew up and still does today.

I am a child of the latter. My grandmother did not have running water, electricity, or an indoor toilet until sometime in the late eighties when her children were able to assist in building a better house on the land she rented, before they were able to purchase it for her. There are many who are still unable to gain such a privilege today.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in Barbados (1966). Photographer Keystone/Getty Images.

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The murder of George Floyd, with global and Black Lives Matter protests, were strong catalysts to her commitment, leading to the removal of the statue of Lord Nelson, which stood in Trafalgar Square in the capital of Barbados for decades.

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Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, Garfield Sobers, President of Barbados, Dame Sandra Mason, Rihanna, and Prince Charles, Prince of Wales stand during the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony at Heroes Square (2021) in Bridgetown, Barbados. Photographer Toby Melville/PA Images/Alamy.

Voices of Independence Little Britain - The Republic — Sandra Pollock

For Black Barbadians education has long been seen as the key. Where they lack financial wealth, they have gained intellectual wealth to enable their progress through political power. And Barbados shows us how both men and women have played a part in this struggle for true freedom.

Independence was gained in 1966 under the leadership of the island’s first Prime Minister, Errol Barrow, the fifth Caribbean island to do so. Subsequent Prime Ministers confirmed their intentions to lead the island onto becoming a republic, but this was slow to come. The current Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, QC, the first female Prime Minister of Barbados, not only made the same commitment but was undaunted in her determination to make it happen.

The murder of George Floyd, with global and Black Lives Matter protests, were strong catalysts to her commitment, leading to the removal of the statue of Lord Nelson, which stood in Trafalgar Square in the capital of Barbados for decades. I watched this event live on social media. My father, now 91, and I had a conversation about the merits of this as a sign of self-governance, freedom and change.

Over the years, talk in our Caribbean communities touched on which of the islands would become a republic. Many considered “Little Britain” would remain close to the British monarchy. It is ironic that “Little Britain” has shown the strength of her Black ancestors and thrown off the shackles step by step.

On the eve of the year Barbados would become a republic, I was awarded the Order of an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Equality. A descendant of Black Barbadians recognised and awarded for working to achieve equality. Ironic. A rebalancing of the scales? Maybe, although my work is across all areas of equality, not only race.

The people of Barbados now officially hold supreme power to rule the land to which their ancestors were taken in chains and shackles, brutalised, and worked to death for profit.

Two strong and powerful Black women have stood up and led the way: • The Right Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, QC. It delights me that Mia Mottley was recently named as one of the most influential female leaders by TIME magazine, prominently on the cover • Dame Sandra Prunella Mason FB GCMG DA DStJ QC, the first President of Barbados, taking her Damehood into presidential leadership Along with others I am sure, they have achieved what many thought impossible. But I believe if you want something done, give the task to a woman, and in this case, a Black woman. The juxtapositions of the African and European past of Barbados and Barbadians means that there are still large gaps in fairness and equality to be closed. Centuries have passed since the outlawing of the legal enslavement of Black people, but the legacies and consequences experienced by both the descendants of enslaved people and the descendants of enslavers still impact today. Many difficult conversations and decisions remain.

My British birth makes me Black British Barbadian African.

Accepting an OBE for my work is not an issue for me. My Barbadian ancestors built the UK and its economy through their blood, sweat, tears and lives.

I am delighted to see the progress of African Barbadians. Barbados, a republic, an island’s march to self-determination.

References Beckles, H., McD., (2016) The First Black Slave Society: Britain’s “Barbarity Time” in Barbados 16361876. Kindston, Jamaica.

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AFROFUTURI AUTONOMY LIVING IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES, TALKING ABOUT INDEPENDENCE IN AN ARTISTIC SETTING, IS TO REFLECT AND DISCUSS DECOLONIALISATON AND COLONIAL ISSUES. AS IN NEW CALEDONIA (FRENCH TERRITORY LOCATED IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN), A LARGE PART OF THE POPULATION IS IN FAVOUR OF AUTONOMY OR EVEN INDEPENDENCE. ONE OF THE MAIN QUESTIONS IS WHETHER ONE CAN BE MARTINICAN (OR GUADELOUPEAN) WHILE BEING FRENCH? IF YOU HAVE TO BE INDEPENDENT TO BE ABLE TO DEVELOP CULTURALLY?

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Voices of Independence Afrofuturist Autonomy — Henri Tauliaut

RIST

Chaman (2020-2022) by Henri Tauliaut.

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Around us, the islands have gained their independence, from Haiti, the first Black republic in 1802, to the islands of Dominica, most of the territories of the Caribbean basin are independent. Why doesn’t the French Caribbean have it?

Still don’t, have it? Were there independence movements in its islands? There, were there independentist thinkers and artists? The answer is obvious: yes.

Artists of course also position themselves on this major political, cultural and economic issue. Among the best known, the poet and politician Aimé Césaire (and his party) still militates for autonomy. The theoretician and writer, Édouard Glissant, is even seen banned from French territory because of his pro-independence words and actions. In the 1970s, student movements campaigned extensively for this independence. The radicalisation of these independence groups (UPLG) in Guadeloupe led to the architect Jacques Berthelot and the journalist Luc Reinette even planting bombs in the late 1980s!

Now, Independantiste Politic Mouvement (MIM) and Autononomist party (PPM) are in power in Martinica for 20 years, and during the French presidential election of 2022 Marine Le Pen’s far-right party won almost 60% of the votes in Guadeloupe and Martinique!

For my part, I regularly compare the French West Indies to a (young?) adult who wants to live with his mother because life is too hard without her. It seems obvious to me that to be fully adult one must be so economically, politically and spiritually. It is vital for the development of our Caribbean cultures, to create our own images, representations, our own current myths. To ground ourselves, we need ancestrally, that is, knowing where we came from through genealogy and genetics. This allows us to (re) know our dead, our ancestors, our divinities, to re-establish our filiations and thus render them a cult which is either animist or totemist.

To focus, we need foundational myths that we can truly relate to. To project ourselves and offer imaginaries where we are at the centre. We need Afro-Futurism, NativeFuturism or any other new form that allows us to offer our young people positive and utopian visions of our future. As early as 1994, the African American author Mark Dery, in Black to the Future, proposed a definition: 86

“Afrofuturism is the appropriation of science-fiction technology and imagery by African Americans (…) appropriation is equivalent to wresting from the Empire its cold and hostile computer tools, in order to monopolize to change them into weapons serving mass resistance”.

In Afrofuturism, it is this ability to transform tools of oppression into weapons of resistance that is particularly relevant for exoticised minorities. It is obviously the possibility of creating and of projecting oneself in universes in our image.

It is therefore essential to project ourselves into a future that we are building for ourselves and future generations, but it is also necessary to take care of our communities, our peoples.

We need to reconnect with ancient African therapeutic, religious and metaphysical practices such as the Kemite or Congo cultures. This allows us to reconnect with our roots, our filiations to have a clear vision of our past, to know how to make relevant choices in our present and therefore to imagine a future where we are not the toys of others. The question of ancestrality is at the heart of African metaphysics.

The ancestors are with us. Paying homage to them by making offerings or confiding in them our fears and desire is normal.

The ritual is therefore at the heart of the relationship with the ancestors and deities of the Afro-Caribbean pantheons such as Voodoo or Santeria. The Amerindian nations also have their religions, their metaphysical system which are known under the name of shamanism.

African and Amerindian forms incorporate technologies, which allows them to be updated. This integration is called techno-shamanism. This encounter between current technologies and non-monotheistic spiritualties is an opportunity for them to set out to conquer ourselves and the world and thus convey our own relationships with the world.

Voices of Independence Afrofuturist Autonomy — Henri Tauliaut

We need Afro-Futurism, Native-Futurism or any other new form that allows us to offer our young people positive and utopian visions of our future.

References Dery, M., (1994) Black to the Future.

Duke University Press Henri Tauliaut (2020). Photographer Robert Charlotte.

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PLACE AND SPACE 88

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Place and Space

Human rights are intrinsically connected to our environment. Spaces for education, spaces of remembrance, stewardship of the land, restitution, connection to our ancestors.

This section explores the creation of places internationally, where we can learn, heal and lay foundations for the future.

Slavery Abolition or Break the Chains? They didn’t free us; we freed ourselves — Kwame Nimako and Stephen Small Raising Cane: A call for the return of an artefact of the Haitian Revolution — Khamal Patterson Racial Justice Conversations in the Dialogue Box — Natasha A Kelly and Olive Vassell The Gayelle In Perpetuity — Jamie J Philbert

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SLAVERY ABOLITION OR BREAK THE CHAINS? THEY DIDN’T FREE US; WE FREED OURSELVES

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Place and Space Slavery Abolition or Break the Chains? They didn’t free us; we freed ourselves — Kwame Nimako and Stephen Small

ON FRIDAY 1 JULY 2022, IN AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, SEVERAL THOUSAND PEOPLE ATTENDED THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KETI KOTI (BREAK THE CHAINS) AN ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF SLAVERY ABOLITION IN OOSTERPARK (EAST PARK), AMSTERDAM. THE EVENT TOOK PLACE ALONGSIDE THE SLAVERY MONUMENT, CREATED BY SURINAMESE ARTIST ERWIN DE VRIES, WHICH OPENED IN 2002. THE EVENT TAKES PLACE ON 1 JULY EACH YEAR, THE DATE ON WHICH SLAVERY WAS LEGALLY ABOLISHED IN THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS IN 1863 (ALTHOUGH A SO-CALLED PERIOD OF “APPRENTICESHIP” LASTED FOR 10 MORE YEARS THROUGH 1873 AND WAS CLEARLY EQUAL TO OR WORSE THAN SLAVERY).

Slavernijmonument (slavery monument)by Erwin de Vries (1929 – 2018) in Oosterpark, Netherlands (2019). Photographer Christophe Cappelli/Alamy.

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As with previous years, the event began with a formal ceremony in which several representatives of the Dutch government spoke, along with representatives of former Dutch colonies in Suriname and the Dutch West Indies.

Amsterdam mayor, Femke Halsema spoke. As did the Director of the Netherlands Bank, Klass Knot who apologised for the bank’s role in Dutch slavery. He also announced that five million Euros would be made available for projects in former Dutch Caribbean colonies and in the Netherlands. There followed an African libation led by Marian Markelo, a Winti Priestess. Events continued well into the evening with presentations, stalls and a wide array of Surinamese and Caribbean culture and food, as well as music, poetry and lectures. By the end of the day the audience was more than double the size which began at the start.

Keti Koti began in Netherlands 20 years ago after decades of demands from Black people. The celebration of slavery abolition began in Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean immediately after slavery was abolished in 1863 and continues to the present day in those nations. When people migrated to the Netherlands in the 1970s there was no similar celebration. They began to meet informally each year on 1 July and demanded that the Dutch government organise an event. Once they succeeded with the event, they demanded a monument, which was established in 2002.

With the monument established, they wanted research, education and teaching to explain Dutch slavery and its legacies. They then demanded a research institute, largely modelled on the Schomburg Center in New York. That institute – the National Institute for the Study of Dutch slavery and its legacies (NiNsee) was opened in 2003. It continues today, though it became much smaller when it lost its major funding several years ago.

At this year’s event more than 40 participants of the Black Europe Summer School (BESS) joined in the ceremony and activities at Keti Koti. BESS is a two-week programme of lectures, presentations and roundtables, founded by Kwame Nimako in 2008, to examine race and citizenship in Europe. BESS fundamentally opposes the assumptions made in European universities that Black Europeans should be seen as immigrants going through a process of assimilation to European values, who have been welcomed by tolerant Europeans and who should be grateful they are in Europe. Instead, BESS argues that Black Europeans are citizens who face institutional racism, and that we deserve recognition of our rights, and we demand respect. Since 2008, BESS has had over 400 participants.

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These divergent approaches to Black Europe are also reflected in the 1 July event, which itself reveals ongoing tensions between the priorities of the Dutch government – which is happy to have a symbolic event of this kind as an end in itself – and the Black population of the Netherlands, who want more substantive action. For example, the Dutch government says that they “emancipated the slaves” but this is a misrepresentation, because there was no emancipation, just abolition. What is the difference? Kwame Nimako in his book The Dutch Atlantic, 2012 says abolition is a legal act that ends slavery, but emancipation is a process in which opportunities for economic, political and social equality can be achieved. The Dutch never provided such opportunities after slavery (nor did the British, the French, the Spanish or anyone else). We are still fighting for emancipation. Black people also say that the Dutch did not “give” abolition, it was the result of resistance and rebellion by the enslaved. That’s why Black people called 1 July “Keti Koti”, Surinamese creole meaning “Break the chains.”

One of the foremost activists, educators and campaigners in the Netherlands is Mitchell Esajas, who along with Jessica de Abreu, leads the Black Archives, a research and documentation centre in Amsterdam. Currently they are holding an exhibition called Facing Blackness which documents racism and resistance in Netherlands. Mitchell Esajas gave a presentation at BESS on 7 July describing the history of resistance in Netherlands. He said all is fine and well with the Keti Koti, 1 July event, but the government only offers pretty words and pretty words do not lead to any action. Esajas said we Black people in the Netherlands, want a formal apology from the Dutch government, reparations in the form of resources and an end to the racist practices of Black Piet. Black people know this will not happen if left to the Dutch government alone, so they continue to mobilise. The year 1863 saw the legal abolition of slavery in the Kingdom of the Netherlands; Black people in the Netherlands today are still fighting for full emancipation.

Place and Space Slavery Abolition or Break the Chains? They didn’t free us; we freed ourselves — Kwame Nimako and Stephen Small

With the monument established, they wanted research, education and teaching to explain Dutch slavery and its legacies.

References Nimako, K., (2012) The Dutch Atlantic. Pulto Press.

Mitchell Esajas, The Black Archives, Netherlands. Photographer Amie Galbraith.

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RAISING CANE: A CALL FOR THE RETURN OF AN ARTEFACT OF THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION

BY RETURNING ST STEPHEN’S CROWN, A PRICELESS TREASURE EMBODYING NATIONAL HERITAGE AND NATIONHOOD, PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER RELEGITIMISED HUNGARY IN 1977 (GWERTZMAN, 1977, PARA. 6). HUNGARY WAS A SIGNIFICANT AXIS ALLY TO THE THIRD REICH AND WAS UNDER COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP WHEN THE CROWN WAS RETURNED. WE CAN CONTRAST THE UNITED STATES LEGITIMATION OF HUNGARY THROUGH CULTURAL RETURNS WITH THE LACK OF SUCH EFFORTS TOWARDS HAITI. HAITI IS A STAUNCH REPUBLICAN ALLY GOING BACK TO THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, AND ITS PRECIOUS CULTURAL HERITAGE HAS ENDED UP IN THE UNITED STATES WITHOUT SCRUTINY. 94

Place and Space Raising Cane: A call for the return of an artefact of the Haitian Revolution — Khamal Patterson

There is a decade-old statute in Savannah, Georgia, commemorating the Haitian Chasseurs-Volontaires who were “the largest Black regiment to serve in the War of Independence and the largest military unit to serve in the Siege of Savannah” (Haitian Monument, Savannah, no date, para. 13). Haitian soldiers played a distinguished role in the 1799 Siege of Savannah on both the front lines and providing cover so French troops could retreat as they fought alongside the American rebels (Haitian Monument, Savannah, no date, para. 14; Haitian Monument, Savannah, no date, para.

15; Associated Press, 2022 para. 9). It has been rumoured that Henri Christophe, one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution, first president of an independent Haiti, and a short-lived Haitian monarch, fought at the Siege of Savannah (Haitian Monument, Savannah, no date, para. 26).

During the chaotic latter years of the French Revolution and well into the Haitian Revolution, another revolutionary leader, Toussaint Louverture, made an offer to President John Adams to protect American ships and citizens (New Republic, 2007, para. 25). Louverture rose from being a literate slave to the commander-in-chief of the French Army in Saint-Domingue (New Republic, 2007, para. 23).

Obviously, his offer carried great weight. Adam’s secretary of state entertained the idea, and the Adams administration exempted Haiti from an embargo imposed on French ships.

(New Republic, 2004, para. 44; New Republic, 2007 para.

25). Louverture even impressed Charles Vincent, the emissary of independent Haiti’s enemy Napoleon Bonaparte (Collins, 2021, para. 9). Two years before Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Haiti to reimpose slavery, Vincent remarked, “There is no man more attached to the ideal of French republicanism” (Collins, 2021, para. 9). Indeed, while complete emancipation and the total abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue were the causes to which Toussaint committed his life, he truly believed in the ideals expressed in the French Revolution. (New Republic, 2007, para.

18; Collins, 2021, para. 1). Without the actions of Haitian revolutionaries exposing racist hypocrisy on the battlefield, “bourgeois liberty” and slavery could have continued to tolerate one another philosophically (Harris, 2016, para. 7).

Toussaint L’Ouverture (1843-1803). Everett Collection Historical Historical/Alamy.

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In his fight for freedom, Louverture was grievously wounded. (Collins, 2021, para. 1). Injuries notwithstanding, he advanced his noble goals in 1801 (Collins, 2021, para.1).

Louverture, “ despite having been wounded seventeen times in battle and having lost most of his front teeth to a cannonball explosion—authored a new abolitionist constitution for Saint-Domingue, asserting that “ here, all men are born, live, and die free and French” (Collins, 2021, para.1). Captured by the French in 1802, Louverture would be imprisoned and die in France in 1803 (Harris, 2016, para. 1). The physical wounds were as serious as the political ones that Louverture and his country would suffer at the hands of their northern republican neighbour. The Jefferson presidential administration came into power in 1803, shocking in its absolute rejection of Haitian fraternity (Harris, 2016, para. 12).

Jefferson, a bigoted slaveholder who also committed his vile racist views to print would show “coldness to the Haitian rebels” (New Republic, 2004, para. 7). Jefferson openly feared and resented the free, Black country that would emerge victorious in 1804 through the efforts of those rebels. He would undermine Haiti “economically and diplomatically” (Harris, 2016, para. 12). Its existence undermined the raison d’etre of his beliefs in Black inferiority (New Republic, 2004, para. 7). Jefferson was no presidential outlier on Haiti policy, however. The United States would not recognise Haiti until 1862 (Toussaint L’Overture Cane, ca. late nineteenth century). However, in 1870, President Ulysses S Grant tried to force Haiti to cede land for a United States naval base, and Haiti refused (Intervention in Haiti (1914), no date, para. 6; Douglas, pp. 341-345). Nevertheless, the United States would be undeterred in trying to control Haiti (Rolanski, 2021, para.

5; Rolanski, 2021, para. 6; Rolanski, 2021, para. 7).

Racist President Woodrow Wilson would send marines to occupy Haiti in 1915 (Heiden, 2018, para.6). The occupying United States administrators were deeply prejudiced, and “Haitians were subjected to virtual slavery, forced to work on road building and railroads and exported to neighboring Dominican Republic to toil on white run plantations, enriching United States companies.” (Heiden, 2018, para.7).

This horrible occupation would last until 1934. During the Cold War and after, the United States would install and support Haitian dictators (Pensack, 2021, para. 13). When these dictators’ actions created refugees, the United States revived racist immigration restrictions that married hysterical public health ignorance with anti-Haitian sentiments (Pensack, 2021, para. 13; Pensack, 2021, para. 14). These ugly impulses have been on display during the COVID-19 epidemic and in images of United States Border Patrol agents cracking horse reins on Haitian asylum seekers and refugees (Pensack, 2021, para. 15; Pensack, 2021, para. 2).

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Louverture pledged his sword to a free Haiti and offered it to the slaveholding United States out of republican fraternity.

His body had been broken in battle, but not his spirit (Beard, 1863, p. 342). In the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC (NMAH), there is a cane said to have belonged to Louverture (Toussaint L’Overture Cane, ca. late nineteenth century.). It is possible that the cane could have been used by Louverture when he was still a combatant and commander, vigorous but hobbled by injuries (Beard, 1863, p. 342). It is also possible that the cane was one used

by Louverture when he was languishing in a French prison cell. The cane may have ended up in an independent Haiti after several tortious historical or political developments.

Its acquisition history in the NMAH’s online catalogue is unknown beyond the fact that a “United States Department of State official acquired this cane there later in the nineteenth century (Toussaint L’Overture Cane, ca. late nineteenth century).

The circumstances surrounding the cane’s acquisition are obviously unclear. This uncertain provenance makes it eligible for repatriation under new ethics guidelines being implemented at museums within the Smithsonian Institution, of which NMAH is a part (McGlone, 2022a, para. 6; McGlone, 2022a, para. 7; McGlone, 2022a, para. 8; McGlone, 2022a, para. 9; Dafoe, 2022a, para. 8). A Black jazz musician’s photo held at the NMAH is being considered for repatriation given its murky provenance (Stevens, 2022, para. 15; Stevens, 2022, para. 16). Under its new guidelines and after approval from its Board of Regents, the Smithsonian will return 39 British-looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria (McGlone, 2022b, para 1; McGlone, 2022b, para 2; McGlone, 2022 para. 3; McGlone, 2022, para. 8). The Board of Regents should also consider returning Louverture’s cane to Haiti.

The cane should be returned as a means of beginning to reconcile with Haiti by recognising its role in sabotaging her hard-won Independence. Haiti does not need relegitimising or redemption, unlike Hungary. It deserves to be recognised for the beacon of freedom that it has always been, even when larger countries conspired to extinguish it.

Place and Space Raising Cane: A call for the return of an artefact of the Haitian Revolution — Khamal Patterson

References Associated Press. (2022) 19 cannons believed from the Revolutionary War are found in the Savannah River, NPR [online]. 29 April. Available from: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/29/1095643209/ savannah-river-british-cannons-1779discovery#:~:text=Press-,19%20cannons%20 from%20the%20Revolutionary%20War%20are%20 found%20in%20the,the%20river%20bottom%20 in%201779 (Accessed:28 June 2022).

Beard, J. (1863) Toussaint L’Ouverture: A Biography and Autobiography, Electronic Edition.

James Redpath, Boston. Available at:https://docsouth. unc.edu/neh/beard63/beard63.html (Accessed 29 August 2022).

Mastin, S. (2009) The Chasseurs-Volontaires de Saint-Domingue [Sculpture]. Franklin Square, Savannah, GA, viewed July 10, 2022, https:// gosouthsavannah.com/historic-district-and-city/ monuments/haitian-monument.html (Accessed: 11 July 2022).

McGlone, P. (2022a) Why the Smithsonian is changing its approach to collecting, starting with the removal of looted Benin treasures, The Washington Post [online]. 6 January. Available from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/artsentertainment/2022/03/08/smithsonian-beninbronzes-nigeria-return/ (Accessed: 19 July 2022).

Collins, L. (2020) The Haitian Revolution and the hole in French high-school history, The New Yorker [online]. 3 December. Available from: https://www. newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-haitianrevolution-and-the-hole-in-french-high-schoolhistory (Accessed:3 April 3 2021).

McGlone, P. (2022b) Smithsonian to give back its collection of Benin Bronzes, The Washington Post [online]. 8 March. Available from: https:// www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/ museums/smithsonian-collecting-policyoverhaul/2022/01/05/36998dd8-6819-11ec-b0a713dd3af4f70f_story.html (Accessed:19 July 2022).

Dafoe, T. (2022a) In a sign of the Times, Experts Across the Smithsonian Have Drafted Its First Institution-Wide Restitution Policy, Artnet News [online]. 28 January. Available from: https://news. artnet.com/art-world/smithsonian-institution-widerestitution-policy-2065316 (Accessed: 19 July 19 2022).

New Republic (2007) Books: Rebel, Rebel, Review of Toussaint Louverture: A Biography by Madison Smart Bell and Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his private letters by Elizabeth Pryor Brown. New Republic [online], 29 March, https:// newrepublic.com/article/63613/books-rebel-rebel (Accessed:3 April 2021).

Dafoe, T. (2022b) In a landmark vote, the Smithsonian Institution approves the return of 29 Benin Bronzes, Artnet News [online]. 15 June.

Available from: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ smithsonians-board-votes-to-return-beninbronzes-2131098 (Accessed: 19 July 2022)

New Republic (2004) Details of Greatness, Review of “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power

by Garry Wills and An Imperfect God: George Washington, his slaves, and the creation of America

by Henry Wiencek. New Republic [online], 10 March, https://newrepublic.com/article/61007/the-detailsgreatness (Accessed: 4 April 2021).

Douglass, F. (1891) Haïti and the United States.

Inside History of the Negotiations for the Môle St. Nicolas. I, The North American Review, 153 (418), pp. 337–345. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/ stable/25102249 (Accessed: 18 July 2022).

Pensack, M. (2021) For Haitians, the Border Crisis Doesn’t Stop With Del Rio, The New Republic [online]. 12 October. Available from: https:// newrepublic.com/article/163971/haitians-bordercrisis (Accessed: 3 May 2022).

Gwertzman, B. (1977) U.S. to return Hungary’s Crown, held since end of World War II, New York Times Archives [online]. 4 November. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/04/archives/newjersey-pages-us-to-return-hungarys-crown-heldsince-end-of.html#:~:text=3%E2%80%94The%20 Carter%20Administration%2C%20in,days%20 of%20World%20War%20II (Accessed: 2 February 2021).

Rosalsky, G. (2021) The Greatest Heist In History: How Haiti Was Forced To Pay Reparations For Freedom, NPR [online]. 5 October.

Available from: https://www.npr.org/sections/ money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatestheist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-payreparations-for-freed (Accessed:6 June 2022).

Harris, M. (2016) Giving Toussaint Louverture the Great Man treatment, The New Republic [online]. 28 November. Available from: https://newrepublic.com/ article/139016/giving-toussaint-louverture-greatman-treatment (Accessed: 8 April 2021).

Stevens, M. (2022) In a Nod to Changing Norms, Smithsonian Adopts Policy on Ethical Returns, The New York Times [online]. 3 May. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/03/ arts/design/smithsonian-ethical-returns.html?mc_ cid=1cf6779167&mc_eid=4254e9122a (Accessed: 19 July 2022).

Heiden, B. (2018) Haiti may be in a hole, but the U.S. helped dig it, Hartford Courant [online] 24 January.

Available from: https://www.courant.com/opinion/ op-ed/hc-op-heiden-trump-haiti-hole-history0124-20180123-story.html (Accessed: 24 June 2022).

Toussaint L’Overture Cane. ca. Late nineteenth c.

[Cane]. At: Washington, D.C. National Museum of American History. PL.011095. Available from: https:// americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/ nmah_1146417 (Accessed:9 May 2020).

‘Intervention in Haiti (1914)’, GlobalSecurity.org [online]. No date. Available from: https://www. globalsecurity.org/military/ops/haiti1914.htm (Accessed: 18 July 18 2022).

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RACIAL JUSTICE CONVERSATIONS IN THE DIALOGUE BOX A JUNE 2022 ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION AT SERENDIPITY INSTITUTE FOR BLACK ARTS AND HERITAGE’S DIALOGUE BOX DEMONSTRATED THAT THE ARTS RESPOND TO RACIAL INEQUITIES IN NUMEROUS WAYS. SCHOLARS AND ARTISTS FROM THROUGHOUT THE MIDLANDS GATHERED TO DISCUSS HOW TO PROMOTE RACIAL JUSTICE THROUGH ARTS ACTIVISM. I WAS ABLE TO TALK ABOUT THE WORK OF GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY’S RACIAL JUSTICE INSTITUTE AND ITS CENTRE, THE WOODSHED.

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Place and Space Racial Justice Conversations in the Dialogue Box — Anita Gonzalez

The Racial Justice Institute was founded in response to the university’s 1838 sale of 272 enslaved people who were auctioned off to work in plantations in Louisiana.

Student activism forced the university to recognise its role in perpetuating the injustices of enslavement. President John J. DeGioia, in September 2015, created a working group on slavery, memory, and reconciliation to make recommendations about how best to acknowledge and recognise that relationship. The university has been renaming buildings and publishing books about the GU2721.

The Woodshed at Georgetown University’s Racial Justice Institute.

In 2016, DeGioia announced the formation of the Racial Justice Institute and later named three founding directors: lawyer Robin Lenhardt, health equity Professor Derek Griffith and myself, Professor of Performing Arts and African American studies, Anita Gonzalez. Our unique interdisciplinary approach hopes to design a roadmap for addressing racial inequities through health, legal interventions, and the arts. We want to imagine what racial justice might look like in the future. The arts will be essential for creating narratives and establishing well-being within Black communities and others impacted by racial inequities.

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I formed the Woodshed, a Centre for Arts, Thought and Culture to administer art-based community outreach work. Inspired by the concept of “woodshedding” within the jazz music idiom, the centre supports artists, scholars, thought leaders, and activists who wish to develop projects, scholarship, or public events that advance racial justice. The centre investigates the impacts and outcomes of artistic productions and humanities research that shape concepts of race and racialisation. It explores intersections between racial justice and artmaking as an activist process. Our goal is to develop artistic responses to race and racialisation and to expand our research through collaborations with other public institutions. Several members of the Woodshed attended our discussion at Serendipity.

In our session we discussed the supplemental afterschool programmes in the United Kingdom which educate youth about Black histories, comparing them to the system of historically Black colleges and universities in the United States. Both sets of organisations attempt to create infrastructure for expanding education beyond Eurocentric imaginations of Black potentiality.

Black Visionaries, the roundtable discussion with UK performance scholars and practitioners, underscored the importance of education by, for and within Black communities. Community members young and old will benefit from understanding how our histories have impacted our social progress and our institutions. While true reparations will be difficult to achieve, we can at least educate ourselves about the valuable contributions people of the African Diaspora have made to global societies.

Finally, our collective of scholars and institutional leaders emphasised the importance of the arts in achieving health and well-being for our communities. If we cannot heal ourselves from traumas produced by racial injustice, we will not be able to produce healthy arts ecosystems which can support continuing growth. I am grateful for all the conversations which move us towards solidarity in our progress towards equity and inclusion for African Diaspora people.

Community members young and old will benefit from understanding how our histories have impacted our social progress and our institutions. While true reparations will be difficult to achieve, we can at least educate ourselves about the valuable contributions people of the African Diaspora have made to global societies.

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Place and Space Racial Justice Conversations in the Dialogue Box — Anita Gonzalez

Footnotes 1.

Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington DC. Photographer Tyrone Turner/DCist/WAMU.

GU272 is a moniker given to the 272 enslaved people.

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MAPPING THE BLACK EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE WRITING OURSELVES INTO EXISTENCE MEANS TAKING OWNERSHIP OF OUR SOCIAL REALITIES, MANY OF WHICH REMAIN HIDDEN IN THE FAMILIES WHERE THEY TAKE PLACE. BY COUNTERACTING VOICES OUTSIDE OF OUR LIVED EUROPEAN EXPERIENCES, OUR NEW PUBLICATION MAPPING BLACK EUROPE: MONUMENTS, MARKERS, MEMORIES (2022) RESISTS THE HEGEMONY OF THE ACADEMIC WORLD WHICH HAS BEEN DOMINATED BY WHITE AND NON-EUROPEAN SCHOLARS WITH AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW OF OUR CULTURES, COMMUNITIES AND BODIES FOR CENTURIES.

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Place and Space Mapping the Black European Experience — Natasha A Kelly and Olive Vassell

However, Black memory culture is still missing in various national contexts as our (hi-)stories remain unknown to many.

This groundbreaking book draws upon direct knowledge of the complexities of our quotidian lives. For the first time in history, Europeans of African descent collectively reproduce Black European knowledge from our own perspectives.

Using mapping as a method of social enquiry allows us to interrogate how we are represented in our respective cities and how much value is given to our memories and contributions to building Europe as a whole.

The quantity and quality of monuments and markers which encapsulate and honour the memories of people, events and ideas important to society, are therefore crucial recognitions of belonging and acceptance of Black people in Europe. However, Black memory culture is still missing in various national contexts as our (hi-)stories remain unknown to many. Accordingly, this book project can be seen as an act of self-recognition that tells the stories of Black historical and/or contemporary figures, organisations and philosophies and how they are remembered. As such it documents the diversity of our centuries-old activism against structural racism, which is fuelled by the lack of information, obscured political measures and the unwillingness of the dominant societies to overcome the colonial past and ongoing coloniality.

This project is the result of a collaboration between the coeditors who founded the Black European Academic Network (BEAN) in 2012, which is designed to create and strengthen interaction between Black European communities. The work of Black contributors from eight European capitals who were either born or have lived here for extensive periods of time, provide an opportunity to foster collective identity, create community cohesion and bridge divides, by presenting their findings to each other as well as to a wider readership which includes the larger European public. The goal is to show how reality is mirrored in the minds of Black inhabitants, how race profoundly conceptualises social structure and influences an individual experience of each city. We believe it will help educate future generations who will experience being Black and European in new and better-rounded ways.

By raising our visibility and productivity our project contributes to a substantive advancement in the promotion and protection of Black lives in Europe. In the frame of the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015 – 2024), proclaimed by General Assembly Resolution 68/237, Mapping Black Europe: Monuments, Markers, Memories with contributions by Natasha A Kelly (Berlin), Sibo R. Kanobana (Brussels), Olive Vassell (London), Bernardino Tavares and Aleida Vieira (Luxembourg), Michelle A Tisdel (Oslo), Epee Dingong (Paris), Kwanza Musi Dos Santos (Rome) and James Omolo (Warsaw) provides an effective foundation for the implementation of activities in the spirit of recognition, justice and development. In this regard, we hope to extend already existing political structures and join forces with Blacktivists around the continent.

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THE GAYELLE IN PERPETUITY THESE WORDS ARE POURED IN THE MELODY OF KALINDA, TO ITS ANCESTORS AND PRACTITIONERS. THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY EIGHT HEART SPIRITS THAT CAN BE IDENTIFIED IN THE GAYELLE: THE TREE, GOAT, AND DRUMMER THAT BIND THE CUTTA, FULLA, AND BULLA DRUMS. THE CHANTWELL. THE STICK FIGHTERS NESTLED TWO AT A TIME IN ITS NUCLEUS. THE HEART OF THE MOON ALIGNED TO THE MAKING OF THE BOIS. AND THE HEART SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE WHO ENCIRCLE AND ARE PART AND PARCEL OF THE GAYELLE.

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Place and Space The Gayelle In Perpetuity — Jamie J Philbert

Sine Cooper versus an unnamed stick fighter, sixth Company Moruga, Trinidad. Photographer Dr John O Stewart.

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Ring’s open for one and all. Any bois could play.

Sa ki tombé tombé.

Gayelle, a Caribbean space, in name, particular to Trinidad and Tobago and a tenement for conflict morphing through collaboration, honour, response ability (responsibility), and freedom. It is an expansive orbit and transient place that is filled by the constituents of the sacred martial tradition, Kalinda: lavways (the call and response chants, prayers, laws or proverbs voiced by the chantwell), strategic and tactical matrimony of warriors and their bois, ritual enactments (seen and unseen), embodied martial dancing, and ancestral drumscapes. This ritual complex is the syntax which governs its organisation. Unending and portals to possibilities of new beginnings, they are celebratory spaces of death and life in tandem. It is a space intended for ritual war.

Parallel to the male dominated appearance of the gayelle is its coding formed in the balance of divine femininity. Come, let us fall into the womb of the gayelle and acknowledge her matrilineality. Hear the umbilical cord of Trinidad and Tobago calypso music, girl child of Kalinda, burying her speech in minor keys of war tongues: lavways. There are many systems within the operating system of the gayelle: the drums; cardiovascular, the participating spectators; skin or integumentary, the fighters; the skeletal system, the bloodletting offered to the “blood hole” (this occurs when one fighter is cut by another resulting in what is called a “buss head”); the reproductive system. In a Kalinda stick fighting duel, the blood that flows out of one practitioner and passes through the gayelle’s blood hole is akin to menstruation. The gayelle menstruates. The blood blesses the space, cleanses it for a new cycle of practitioners to engage in Kalinda’s ritualised warfare. The etymology of bless is blood.

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Gayelle. Bois Academy of Trinidad and Tobago.

Place and Space The Gayelle In Perpetuity — Jamie J Philbert

Sa ki ti ni mama.

The lavways chanted in the gayelle are analogous to being its nervous system as it offers breath, aids in maintaining homeostasis, sends and receives messages and provides a medium for all the elements or systems within the gayelle to communicate with one another. Thus, calypso music can be considered the nervous system of Iere and Urupaina (the names of Trinidad and Tobago before colonisation) due to its history and ability to convey social commentary, social action and essentially act as a system that directs communication amongst a nation throughout its course to independence. In fact, these relationships amongst systems that exist in the gayelle and the connection of calypso to the greater place of Trinidad and Tobago, which is a type of gayelle, are both independent and interdependent. In the literal and metaphoric gayelle there is meaning within meaning within meaning.

Parallel to the male dominated appearance of the gayelle is its coding formed in the balance of divine femininity.

Come, let us fall into the womb of the gayelle and acknowledge her matrilineality.

Zyé wanga go bury de dead.

Perception is in the eye of the beholder. When perceiving the gayelle as a divine feminine space, one that is not all feminine nor all masculine yet one that is balanced, we must consider the place (Trinidad and Tobago) it dwells in is also often referenced in the feminine. In his 1962 independence speech, Eric Williams refers to the newly independent nation of Trinidad and Tobago as mother. The gayelle is a birthing ground for warriors and royalty alike whether they are liked by the space or not. Those who are born of these grounds understand there is risk met with responsibility; the ability to respond when called upon. The gayelle is an internal and external, extemporaneous space of call and response drenched in the possibility of death. Kalinda is the mother to much of Trinidad and Tobago’s culture and she is calling. How will we respond? This is a gayelle essay.

Ring’s open for one and all. Any bois could play.

References Williams, E. (1962) Independence Day Address. [Speech] Available at: https://www. aspiringmindstandt.com/eric-williams (Accessed: 27 July 2022) Boomert, A., (2001) Names for Tobago, Journal de la Société des américanistes, 87, 339-349. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4000/jsa.1856 Authors note: The italicised text denote the call and responses of selected traditional lavways (Kalinda songs). These are often a blend of Trinidad Patois/ Patwa and English.

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NEW WRITIN

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New Writing

NG

The BlackInk New Writing competition returns for this third edition, led by Serendipity and Writing East Midlands, seeks to support Black writers of short fiction. The judging panel included Pawlet Brookes, Mike Gayle, Henderson Mullin, Jacob Ross and Rashida Seriki.

We are delighted to announce the two winners of BlackInk New Writing competition 2022.

Winners Marcia White – Walk Good Pam Williams – Hibiscus Honourable Mentions Joan Anim-Addo – Finding George Jackson Sandra Brown-Springer – Colorstruck Gaelle Rigaud – Convenience Store Politics Melissa Boyce-Hurd – In the Parking Lot

You can listen to the winning stories being read via the QR code.

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WALK GOOD

I REMEMBER THE ROAD SHIMMERING IN THE LATE AFTERNOON SUN, THE FAINT SMELL OF TAR MELTING IN THE UNREMITTING HEAT. I REMEMBER THE BORED STARE OF THE DOG RESTING IN THE SHADE OF A ROADSIDE TREE, PANTING QUICKLY, ITS TONGUE LOLLING THICK AND PINK FROM A SLACK JAW. I REMEMBER SEEING, WITH FRESH EYES, NEW FEATURES IN FAMILIAR HOUSES AS WE DROVE BY.

The sea breeze that washed over me through the open window along the coastal road, the saltiness that coated the inside of my mouth. I stuck my head out the window and drank huge gulps of air like I would after a deep dive or swimming underwater for a long time. Sated, the water from the bottle in my rucksack was refreshingly sweet, cool and soothing as it flowed to my stomach. There was a deafening silence in the car. Aunty P was riding shotgun.

She hadn’t switched on the radio as usual. I remember a lone seagull, wings spread wide, soared over the still water as we passed. I spun around, kneeling on the back seat, to follow its journey through the rear window.

I remember following meekly behind Uncle B towards the security point. Aunty P’s fingers were folded around mine – something she hadn’t done for years. I felt safe with my palm firmly in hers. Aunty P bit hard on her bottom lip and silent tears squeezed down her cheeks. Uncle B stopped before we got to the security gates. He forced me into a dark heavy jacket he’d taken from the trunk of his car with my luggage.

I was swallowed up in the monstrous thick coat, much too big for me. Uncle B patted my shoulder. “Walk good” he said with a quavering voice before he gently pushed me onwards.

I looked back after a few feet. Aunty P was in the same spot.

I waved and then moved on quickly to hide my own tears.

I remember our sobering arrival at the airport. The clamour of people, the commands, greetings, goodbyes, as they scurried to find the right line for their flight. Uncle B led the way. He paused to scan the overhead signs and departure boards. We waited silently for my turn. Uncle B held Aunty P’s hand as the clerk behind the check-in desk smiled and told me how grown-up I was to have all my travel documents ready – and in order. I watched nervously as the clerk checked my passport and held my breath as she weighed my bags, expecting at any moment to be turned back. I remember the relief of being handed my ticket and her saying “Have a nice flight”.

I remember the unfamiliar restrictions of the bulky jacket.

I fidgeted, trying to find a comfortable fit and ignoring the wary side looks of other passengers in the waiting room.

There were several family groups of twos, threes and fours.

Children my age cocooned in the protective orbit of present parents. I was proud of being mature enough to travel alone.

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I remember the large mural of a hummingbird on the side of the plane as I approached and the steep climb up the metal steps and the weight of the jacket. I bumbled along the narrow aisle like a giant brown bear dragging myself forward seat by seat in a sideways swaying motion. A slow parody of my agile self. I eventually arrived at seat 33A and squeezed myself into the tight recess to reach the furthest cavity by the window.

New Writing Walk Good — Marcia White

I remember the sky looking a brighter blue, the hills a deeper green, the tarmac a cold grey. The excitement of the previous weeks drained from me as the plane taxied down the runway. The woman, who looked like Aunty P, in the seat beside me offered me a sweet. I chose a red one from the bag of multi-coloured gumballs, it was a cherry flavour.

I felt like I was on the rollercoaster at the fairground when the plane took off. I sucked hard on the sweet, it made the popping in my ears less painful.

I felt the silence of the crowded train carriage suffocating. The stale smell of sweat, rotten food and body odours, made me gag.

I remember the sweat beads on my forehead forming into trickles and my shirt clinging damply to my back. The woman who was not Aunty P suggested she stored the jacket in the overhead locker. She helped free one arm at a time, while I twisted uncomfortably in the tight space.

I remember still being too warm in my vest, long-sleeved t-shirt and jumper. The dinner was tasteless chicken. I smiled as the woman who was not Aunty P asked if I was on my own and who would meet me at the airport. She turned the page and returned to reading the book in her lap when I didn’t reply. I sat still for hours listening to the mechanical drone of the plane engine. I woke up, not recalling when I had fallen asleep, with the cabin in darkness and the woman who was not Aunty P snoring loudly. A single strand of saliva dribbled slowly out the corner of her mouth.

I remember my eyes heavy with interrupted sleep when the pilot announced we would be arriving shortly. Breakfast was cold cheese and crescent-shaped sweet bread. The smiling stewardess with doll features in a smart uniform, leaned across not-Aunty P to check my seatbelt was secure.

Not-Aunty P offered me another sweet. I chose the blue one, surprised at the sharp unfamiliar sweetness. The engine roared and then faded as we landed.

I remember the slow careful descent from the plane and how my fingers skirted the top of the cold handrail of the steps down to the tarmac. The tarmac was a deeper grey.

The breeze was chilly and the sky grey. My breath formed thin fog circles as I fumbled to zip up the jacket. There was a sharpness in the open air where I had last found it to be fresh. I remember the heavy smell of gasoline and oil. The terminal was the size of a small city with hordes of people scampering on to unknown destinations. I was confused at not knowing what to expect. I felt small and insignificant at the customs desk.

I remember the stern stare of the man who asked questions about me and my family. Anger and tiredness at being delayed while other passengers were dealt with quickly. I scowled when the customs officer handed back my passport without looking at me and called “next”.

I remember the irritation of waiting, for what seemed like ages, for my luggage. I felt the anxiety of walking to the exit and wondering if someone would be waiting for me.

The unease of hearing my name spoken with a foreign but familiar lilt. The relief of noticing a woman, who looked like the photo Aunty P kept by her bed, rushing towards me with a wide grin.

I remember the smell of lavender embedded in her coat, soft against my cheek. After the visual going over, I felt safe wrapped in my mother’s embrace and her approving brief hug. I remember the long walk to the escalators down to the Tube platform and the baffling instructions from my mother about using public transport. I felt the silence of the crowded train carriage suffocating. The stale smell of sweat, rotten food and body odours, made me gag. I was exhausted yet excited after the long night of restless sleep. The cold fresh air as we left the station was refreshing. At daybreak I peeped through the heavy curtains stretched across my bedroom window and spied a green field beyond, inviting me to explore.

The dew is glistening in the cracks of the pavement when I get to the road. There are paced pauses between the cars as I wait to cross on my own. I hear the crispness of the leaves underfoot as I crunch through the park, and how clumsy my feet are in new heavy boots.

I am hungry for a taste of home and long for Aunty P and our morning trek. Her teasing me to pick up my feet, all the way down the hill where I would catch the bus to school.

I remember the smell of early spring and the rat-a-tat of the woodpecker in a distant tree in this new park. I remember feeling at peace. I remember the deep blue of the clear sky as I searched for the woodpecker. I remembered to walk good.

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HIBISCUS

FLYERS PINNED TO THE SHACK’S WALLS WAVED HIS NAME IN THE BREEZE. IT APPEARED CHALKED THICK AND WHITE ON THE BOARD, LEANED UP OUTSIDE TOO. OMEROD BREAKSPEARE. AS HIS PARENTS CHRISTENED HIM. THOUGH SO LONG UNUSED, THE WORLD HAD FORGOTTEN IT.

He hopped onto the scarred platform that was the stage.

Peered from beneath his cap, pulled low, and searched her out. As he did the last time he was here.

Tonight, anticipation of a good time buzzed loud. Nutmeg vied with sugar syrup, vapours from rum and malty lager, to pervade the air. Thomas rattled ice into glasses and poured from bottles grasped in both hands, calling out “ hold on, man” or “you next.”

The thrash of activity paused and over the heads of the crowd, Omerod and Thomas exchanged imperceptible nods.

Omerod stretched his lean fingers. That’s where his talent lay, in their joints and tendons; especially when they teased the double bass into life.

It was a discovery made in his youth in a dusty basement club tucked down a dingy London street. He’d jammed with a straggle of musicians amidst the squelch of sticky carpets and stickier tabletops. Swamped in a dusty sheet, a bass stood propped in the shadows. Taking care, he’d uncovered it, wiped it down, until he felt the maple exhale beneath his touch.

Now he’d reprised his first love. Deft fingers plucked at strings to release sweet curlicues of bewitching sound.

– A low vibration emitted airy tendrils that slow-crawled an invitation to Roselle’s waist; slid gossamer trails along the flesh of her thighs and kissed the scar raised there before sliding to settle at her pink polished toes: the shed skin of inhibition.

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Here, in this shack of sun-paled boards, she was used to melodies that jingled those just arrived, or stayed too long, into hip shaking action; climbed higher to make the vibe upbeat and increase the ebb and flow of liquor and money.

But not this.

Easing from the groove of the bar, she glanced at the stool beneath the display of thanks-for-a-good-time photos and postcards, and felt the stab of Slojo’s absence.

She missed the way his eyes used to rake over her. Missed pretending not to notice him where he perched lopsided, one foot on the floor as if to stop his too long frame from sliding off his seat as he tilted back shots and nodded to Thomas for refills. How he lolled, elbow spread wide across the bar, fingers folded around his jaw; or stroking the veneer of the wood he’d fashioned.

Lord, the way he use to watch this piece a lumber, eh? He’d touch it. Talk to it. Like he ready to disappear in it. She imagined his molecules fusing with its rings and grain like some kind of genie in reverse. Becoming part of it.

– Slojo had laboured long into moon bathed nights and throughout those without a sliver of light to sculpt that timber. Visions of Roselle keeping him company.

Perspiration and desire would drip from his forehead and he’d wipe them away with a soft cloth as he wooed his creation with lilted whispers: If you can’t make her notice me, then nothing go work.

New Writing Hibiscus — Pam Williams

Crimson petals fluttered to his feet when he stood. He stared at them. Blinked and stared again. Rushed to the sea.

After two hard weeks, when his arms throbbed and his back ached and his heavy legs refused to walk the mile home, he’d prised the lid from a Carib and drooped to the floor. Let the cold froth of the liquid wash away the dust lining his craw.

Daybreak had unfurled his fingers from the edges of the honed wood. Sat him up, head giddy, uncertain of how he’d ended up laying there. He’d rubbed his eyes, massaged his temples, thinking, shit man, one Carib have me so?

Sensations swirled through him. Vague recollections dodging his grasp in a lazy game of hide and seek. Roselle’s soft weight pressed against him. Roselle? Nah, man. And yet she’d felt real. The slipperiness of naked skin moist beneath his hands. Breath like a wanton breeze, prickling goose bumps along his neck.

The imprint of a kiss wet on his parted lips. Every yearning dream he’d dreamt of her come alive.

A bittersweetness caught in his nostrils, skipped on his tongue, tasting of her cocoa butter scent. “What going on?” He shook it from his head. Decided, I go take a swim, imagined the briny slap of seawater straightening out his senses.

Crimson petals fluttered to his feet when he stood. He stared at them. Blinked and stared again. Rushed to the sea.

Later, at the party, Thomas clanged the iron bell and raised his glass. Toasted, “to my brother with the magic hands,” and swept the cloth from Slojo’s masterpiece; dribbled a libation of rum over the handcrafted bar.

Sweaty bodies had clamoured around the tamed ruggedness of the wood. “Look at those curves. Just like a women.”

A voice called. There was a ripple of agreement and surreptitious fingers stroked the smoothed ledge again; its knots and markings that begged to be touched.

Even with his brother’s arm warm about his shoulders, the praise and congratulations, the slaps on the back, shots gulped in honour of his artistry, all Slojo could think was: where Roselle? He scanned sunburned chests and fleshy bellies; tan-lined breasts overflowing flimsy tops. Looked so hard for her dark curves he didn’t notice her appear beside him.

“It’s beautiful” she said.

Two words. Making him greedy for more. Something for his ears only. Not the “good evening” she’d murmured those few times she’d arrived at the shack to find him there alone. A greeting she may as well have directed to the shabby structure since she didn’t look at him. And never spoke his name.

She’d retreat. Sit on the step and gaze out at the sea as if she hadn’t seen it every day of her life. While he gazed at the line of her shoulders; the way the shape of her hips and backside resembled a breadfruit split in two.

With “thanks” lined up on his tongue, he turned to her, only to see her skitter away. What the hell. Everything I do in vain? A pulse pounded at his temples, powered its beat through his tautened body.

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The indigo sky deepened into a black that absorbed the stars. White streaks sliced through the night. Winds dragged leaves and branches from lofty trees. Ripened rain cascaded. The shack shuddered, caught in a maelstrom of discontent.

And when it ceased, Slojo was gone.

– “Maybe he drown.”

“How he would end up in the sea?”

“You didn’t see blackness? He coulda lose he way.”

Conversations wove conjecture around the spot where they had celebrated him; ended with, “no, man. Not Slojo.”

Not the boy Teacher Phyllis had tried to hurry with “make haste slow Joe.” His response, “ but teacher me name not Joe,” giving the other kindergarteners something to titter over, mock him with until the name had become his.

Not the young man who had returned from an education abroad and slipped back into life as if he’d never left. No acting like a big shot. No bragging stories. A subtle drawl to his dialect, all that told of travel.

“Well, where he go?”

“How he could vanish, just so?”

The debris littered beach coughed up no evidence. Neither, Thomas confirmed, did his brother’s ordered house or its sprawling fruit tree laden yard.

There were no sightings by the bay or the lumberyard, in the post office or the supermarket’s twin aisles. No one spotted him silhouetted against the blue at the head of the falls; or floating starfish-like in its pool of clear water.

“He must dead.”

“No, man, he alive somewhere.”

“Then is lose he memory lose”.

Roselle’s voice never added to theirs. But, she’d wonder, for true what coulda happen to Slojo?

She’d become the one who talked to the bar. Trying to elicit what it might know.

–

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Cool condensation trickled between her fingers as she raised her glass and sipped; licked her lips and waited for the rum to rise through her and make her head light. But the music elevated her before alcohol could.

Rhythms thrummed and rode the walls, conjured invisible ribbons that drew her forward; reverberated her name from board to board, hinting at secrets kept just for her. She placed her glass on a beer mat and glanced at Thomas, who ducked his chin.

“What you smiling ‘ bout?”

“Me? Nothing, man.”

Cocking her head, she pushed the tumbler his way. Noticed again that fighting not to be seen grin. She recalled the sullen days after Slojo disappeared and Thomas’s good humour had, too. When nothing pleased him and his gruffness came without apology.

“You don’t know this is art?” He’d berate, scrubbing at ring marks and spills, shining slick on the bar’s buffed surface.

Presenting Thomas with rainbow-coloured raffia squares for the offending glasses to sit on; she’d seen the corners of his mouth twitch. Days later, she’d propped vibrant hibiscus in curvy coke bottles and centred them on the tables, saying “the place need brightening up” and saw him smile for real.

Beer mats and soft-petalled flowers. Distractions from the possibility his brother was gone for good. Her way of showing him she missed Slojo; since she couldn’t admit it and expect him to believe her.

– If he was here now… She’d take his hand and squeeze it as hard as her throat had crushed the hello’s the how you do’s meant for him. Say let’s take a drink, nuh. Suggest a stroll to where waves washed gleam over rocks; or propose a cook up of fresh catch roasted over open flames. All she’d failed to do before.

Without wanting to, she’d ignored him. From the day their bodies had collided and his slow scrutiny swarmed over her; pricking her flesh with a thousand tiny honeyed stings.

Like a bashful child, she’d hovered in the shack’s flowerfringed doorway as the sea watched on; heat surging through her pores. Unable to close her slackened mouth. Swallow away dryness. Or speak.

New Writing Hibiscus — Pam Williams

The frenzy set the shack spinning. She grabbed for air as the poster covered walls blurred and the world receded, sucked away as if by the tide; emptied of everyone except him.

It was this reaction she’d swooped, head held high, away from. Not him. But the moment proved impossible to rewind; and looking at him reignited that fever. So, wasn’t it best not to?

Forget him. Arms twirling high, body sashaying to the eloquence of the bassist’s call, she tilted her face upward; yet behind closed eyes reclaimed the sultry sky of the night she last saw Slojo.

– The musician’s lyrical promise lured her and the partygoers to the area cleared of tables and stools. Gaps in the audience squeezing away as it swelled.

Mouths spilled jocular tales and seductions louder, downed drinks faster as the tempo increased. A familiar song burst from their throats, and the packed tight bodies rose together like a wave. Toes lifting from the floor, arms thrust up.

Sweeping Roselle along as she tried to move through them.

Her eyes fixed on him as he uncurled his body from the instrument to bow deep and low, unleashing a storm of applause, whistling and stamping.

The frenzy set the shack spinning. She grabbed for air as the poster covered walls blurred and the world receded, sucked away as if by the tide; emptied of everyone except him.

“Roselle.” His arms steadied her.

Heat tingled her skin even as she froze. “How you know my…” she stepped back from his closeness. “It can’t be…”

His hand in her hair made silken petals brush her shoulder as they fell.

“It’s me.”

“But how?” Reaching up, she pushed his cap aside to see him and freed his name so long caught in her throat. “Slojo”.

As if counting in to jump rope, she timed when to twine between swaying hips, groped at waists like footholds on a cliff until she was near enough to touch him. To swipe the patch of sweat glistening on his stranger’s chest, outlined by the damp unbuttoned whiteness of his shirt.

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SPOTLIGHT LATINX AMPLIFIED THE REFUSAL TO SEE, TO RENDER A CULTURE AND PEOPLE INVISIBLE IN PLAIN SIGHT, ELOQUENTLY DESCRIBES THE EXPERIENCES OF THE LATIN AMERICAN COMMUNITY AS IT SITS CHEEK BY JOWL WITH THE AFRICAN AND AFRICAN CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY, BOTH IN THE UK AND INTERNATIONALLY. THERE IS A MISUNDERSTANDING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY, APPROPRIATION, AND A DENIAL OF THE SYNERGY BETWEEN CULTURES, HERITAGE AND PLACE.

The Latin American community is one of the fastest growing in the UK and the eighth largest in London (around a quarter of a million), with a contemporary migration to the UK since 1964 and a history that goes back much further.

It is difficult to put a spotlight on a community that has not been recognised formally (Latin American or Latinx is not an option on the UK census). In mainstream media too, Latinx representation has largely been dictated by negative stereotypes or is completely absent. However, there is a call for change and one that is being paved by arts and cultural movements.

Earlier this year films such as Encanto (2021) and the remake of West Side Story (2021) showcased Latinx talent and stories, achieving significant attention and success. Although these Disney funded ventures are not unproblematic, they highlight a shift in how Latinx arts are embraced. For instance, ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ from Encanto spent seven weeks at the top of the UK singles charts and features the voices of many well-respected Latin music singers. This is echoed in the rising popularity of Reggaetón, with artists such as Valenciz, Amber Donoso, Guala, Sachellys and La Bomba all paving the way in the UK Reggaetón scene. Filmmakers such as Romano Pizzichini and writers such as Yara Rodrigues are magnifying the Latinx British experience.

The successful lobbying by young activists, LatinXcluded, has seen Arts Council England add “Latin American” to workforce monitoring forms, with Lambeth Council and King’s College London also supporting this step-change.

The University of Manchester recently held a Festival of Latin American Anti-Racist and Decolonial Art exploring how artists in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia address racial diversity and how they use their art to challenge deeply entrenched racial inequality. It was a privilege to attend the conference and to see the power that can come speaking your own truth (in your own language).

For Let’s Dance International Frontiers 2022, Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage presented the work of Ballet Hispánico, led by Eduardo Vilaro, the company’s artistic director. Ballet Hispánico are recognised as the largest Latinx-led organisation in the US, with a 50-year legacy. Their performance on the mainstage at Curve, Leicester, marked the company’s debut in England and only their second appearance in the UK (previously they had performed in Scotland). To sit in the audience of both events was to become aware of the value in spaces of creation and community, amidst its complexity and mercuriality. As Cultures of Anti-racism in Latin America explain: “The arts play a crucial role in anti-racist movements, because they have the ability to mobilise emotions, allowing them to engage with racism’s emotional logic.”

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Spotlight Latinx Amplified — Pawlet Brookes

These silos of change are not without struggle. Latin American workers are still more likely to be earning under the minimum wage, experience workplace abuse and are less likely to access even basic healthcare services. There is often a lack of resources in Spanish and Portuguese, and although there are many Latinx-led groups helping to change this, cultural spaces are under threat. The Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, a huge cultural hub to over 150 Latin American businesses, was demolished in 2020 to make way for a housing development. It was another victim of gentrification, despite the huge backlash from the local community but a familiar story for many. At Caribbean carnivals, it is not unusual to see Columbian, Brazilian, or Bolivian troupes join the procession through our major cities across the UK. However, time will tell the impact that the pandemic and funding cuts have had.

The right to claim and celebrate identity is a real one and an important one. Intersectionality is at the heart of creating visibility, opening a space, and the fluidity that manifests itself when addressing either Black or Latinx communities: “In Latin America, characterised by centuries of racial mixture, many people do not identify as part of a Black or Indigenous minority group or as white… people may identify as mestizos (mixed-race people) or morenos (brown people), or they may not readily identify in racial or colour terms at all.”

- Cultures of Anti-racism in Latin America (2022) In the development of Serendipity’s own work, we look to embrace the Latinx community as part of the Diaspora, a word that by its very definition unfolds the diversity of experience. Within the embrace of Diaspora, we can begin to unpack the complexities of colonisation, culture and language inside the shared histories and geographies of the Caribbean and Latin America and the spaces that we create for ourselves in the UK. The struggle for visibility is a shared one, but collectively our voices are louder.

References Brookes, P. (2022) We Don’t Talk About Bruno: Why it’s time to amplify the voices of the Latinx community in the UK. Cultures of Anti-racism in Latin America, University of Manchester (2022) Cultures of Anti-racism in Latin America. [Website] Available at: https://www. digitalexhibitions.manchester.ac.uk/s/carla-en/page/ home (Accessed: 27 July 2022) Humanities Centre, University of Florida (2022) Intersections. [Online] Available at: https:// intersections.humanities.ufl.edu/black-latinx/ (Accessed: 27 July 2022) Latin Elephant (2022) Walking the Elephant.

[Online] Available at: https://latinelephant.org/ walkingtheelephant/ (Accessed: 27 July 2022) Maps of the World (2017) Is the Caribbean part of Latin America? [Online] https://www.mapsofworld. com/answers/geography/is-caribbean-part-oflatin-america/# (Accessed: 11 March 2022) Noble, W. (2020) Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre Is Set To Shut In July... But A Local Protest Group Has Other Ideas. Londonist. [Online] Available at: https://londonist.com/london/news/ elephant-and-castle-shopping-centre-closing-july2020?ref=related_links (Accessed: 27 July 2022) Seddon, A. (2020) Theatre News: Arts Council England to Include Latin-American Checkbox On Diversity Monitoring Forms. The Indiependant [Article] Available at: https://www.indiependent. co.uk/theatre-news-arts-council-england-toinclude-latin-american-checkbox-on-diversitymonitoring-forms/ (Accessed: 27 July 2022) The New Stateman (2019) Latin Americans are one of the UK’s fastest-growing groups. So why aren’t they recognised? [Online] Available at: https:// www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/12/latinamericans-are-one-of-the-uks-fastest-growinggroups-so-why-arent-they-recognised [Accessed: 11 March 2022) Trust for London (2016) Towards visibility: the Latin American community in London. [Online] Available at: https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/publications/ towards-visibility-latin-american-communitylondon/#:~:text=Around%20a%20quarter%20 of%20a,thirds%20having%20arrived%20since%20 2000. (Accessed: 11 March 2022)

Ballet Hispánico at Let’s Dance International Frontiers (2022) Photographer Stuart Hollis / Hollis Photography UK on behalf of Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage

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2022 IN NUMBER 7

Grants awarded to Black-led organisations by the Freelands Foundation’s Space to Dream Fund.1

30

Black authors listed amongst the top selling 1,000 authors in the UK.2

2%

Of public sculptures of named individuals are people from global majority backgrounds.3

2.4%

Of classroom teachers in the UK are Black or Black British.5

160 3.4% Black Professors in the UK.6

Of the UK’s population identify as Black African, Black Caribbean or Black British.7

30,000 12.6% Rarely seen images of people from the African and African Caribbean Diaspora released by Getty Images.4 118

Of people entering the UK music industry workforce at entry level identify as Black or Black British.8

2022 In Numbers

N RS

4.

Getty Images have launched the Black History and Culture Collection (BHCC) providing non-commercial access to historical and cultural images of the African/Black Diaspora in the US and UK from the nineteenth century to present day. The collection aims to grant access to rarely seen images for educators, academics, researchers, and content creators, enabling them to tell untold stories around Black culture. The Black History and Culture Collection was carefully curated from content owned by Getty Images, in partnership with internationally recognised researchers, historians and educators, including Dr. Deborah Willis of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Jina DuVernay of Clark Atlanta University, Dr. Tukufu Zuberi of the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Mark Sealy MBE and Renée Mussai of Autograph.

Getty Images (2022) Getty Images Launches Initiative to Elevate Black History and Empower Storyteller. [Article] Available at: http://press.gettyimages.com/getty-images-launches-initiativeto-elevate-black-history-and-empower-storytellers/ (Accessed:27 July 2022)

5.

5) In the 2021/2022 survey, 14.9% of teachers identify as belonging to an ethnic minority group, of these 2.4% identified as Black or Black British, of these 9.3% of Black or Black British teachers were in leadership positions (heads, deputy heads, assistant heads).

There are 24,413 schools in England, this means there is an average of 0.5% of Black teachers per school.

GOV.UK (2022) Reporting Year 2021. School Workforce in England.

[Website] Available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service. gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england#dataBlock8beb05d2-30cb-441b-fd15-08da326ae22f-tables (Accessed:27 July 2022)

6.

Footnotes 1.

2.

The successful organisations were selected in June 2022 by Freelands Foundation Diversity Action Group from over 120 respondents to an Open Call process. Freelands Foundation uses ‘Black-led’ to refer to organisations run by, with and for Black and Brown people those of African, Caribbean and Asian heritage, these included 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, The Arab British Centre, Bernie Grants Arts Centre, Cubitt Artists, June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive, Rising Arts and Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.

Francis, A. (2022) Empowering Black people to become academics ‘should be top priority’ as data reveals poor diversity levels.

[Article] Available at: https://inews.co.uk/news/education/ academics-new-figures-professors-uk-universities-black-1435927 (Accessed:27 July 2022)

Freelands Foundation (2022) Space to Dream Fund [Website] Available at: https://freelandsfoundation.co.uk/grants/space-todream-fund (Accessed:27 July 2022)

7) 3.8% of people identify as Black in the England, 0.9% in Wales, 1.2% in Scotland and 0.5% in Northern Ireland. These figures are based on the Annual Population Survey Data Set, June 2020-2021, via UK Data Service. Census figures are scheduled to be released in October – November 2022.

Measured during the non-lockdown period of 2021, the 30 Black authors were identified by The Bookseller in the top 1000 who brought in £13.4m between them— 1.8% of the total book sales revenue.

Uberoi, E., and Tunnicliffe, R., (2021) Ethnic Diversity in Politics and Public Life. [Website] Available at: https://researchbriefings. files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01156/SN01156.pdf (Accessed:05/08/2022)

O’Brien, K., and Onwuemezi, N., (2022) Breadth of titles by Black authors increases but big names still lead the way. The Bookseller [Article] Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/news/ breadth-of-titles-by-black-authors-increases-but-big-namesstill-lead-the-way (Accessed:27 July 2022) 3.

Data published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that the number of Black professors total just 160 out of 22,855.

The ethnicity of 1,720 academics in the senior role was not known.

Figures for 2019/20 showed 155 professors were Black, out of 22,810.

Art UK lists approximately and 50,201 sculptures including 14,129 outdoor artworks in the UK Harris, G. (2022) The Art Newspaper [Article] Available at: https:// www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/07/01/new-research-revealsthat-just-2percent-of-public-statues-in-britain-commemoratepeople-of-colour (Accessed:27 July 2022

7.

8.

8) This lowers to 6.4% at Senior level. People who identified as Mixed represented 8.1% at Entry Level, falling to 5.3% at Senior Level. People who identified as Asian or Asian British made up 6.8% of the workforce at Entry Level – dropping to 4% at Senior Level. Those who identified as White accounted for 65.4% at Entry Level and 80.1% at Senior Level.

UK Music (2021) UK Music Highlights Need For More Black and Ethnically Diverse Employees In Top Music Jobs. [Website] Available at: https://www.ukmusic.org/news/uk-music-highlights-need-formore-black-and-ethnically-diverse-employees-in-top-musicjobs/#:~:text=The%20UK%20Music%20data%20from,to%20 6.4%25%20at%20Senior%20Level. (Accessed:05/08/2022)

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COMING SOON Books Mapping Black Europe: Monuments, Markers, Memories Edited by Natasha A Kelly and Olive Vassell Transcript Published: April 2022 Black communities have been making major contributions to Europe’s social and cultural life and landscapes for centuries. However, their achievements largely remain unrecognised by the dominant societies, as their perspectives are excluded from traditional modes of marking public memory. For the first time in European history, leading Black scholars and activists examine this issue - with first-hand knowledge of the eight European capitals in which they live.

Highlighting existing monuments, memorials, and urban markers they discuss collective narratives, outline community action, and introduce people and places relevant to Black European history, which continues to be obscured today.

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Hoods Ty’rone Haughton Verve Poetry Press Published: November 2022 Ty’rone Haughton is a Jamaican born, Leicester based poet, freelance practitioner and advocate. Ty’rone’s poetry focuses on social observations, identity and vulnerabilities. Ty’rone has performed across the nation, on tour supporting artists such as Akala and John Berkavitch. Ty’rone’s international work has seen him produce writing retreats in The Gambia, Valencia and a European tour with a cohort of other British artists.

I’m Black So You Don’t Have to Be Colin Grant Memoir Published: 26 January 2023 “I’m Black, so you don’t have to be,” Colin Grant’s uncle Castus used to tell him. For Colin, born in Britain to Jamaican parents, things were supposed to be different. If he worked hard and became a doctor, he was told, his race would become invisible; he would shake off the burden he believed his parents’ generation had carried. The reality turned out to be very different.

Coming Soon

A Woman Like Me: A Memoir Diane Abbott Memoir Published: 18 May 2023 Britain’s first ever female Black MP tells her astonishing story of groundbreaking achievement and the political and social challenges she has faced in Parliament in candid, insightful prose. Written with her trademark frankness and humour, A Woman Like Me - published to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of her election to Parliament - is a candid account that celebrates how one woman succeeded against massive odds and built an extraordinary life.

Part of a Story That Started Before Me: Poems about Black British History Curated by George the Poet Poetry Published: 1 June 2023 Black British History told by poets past, present and future.

Rose and the Burma Sky Rosanna Amaka Fiction Published: 23 February 2023 The heartrending unrequited love story of a Black soldier in the Second World War. For fans of Yaa Gyasi, Esi Edugyan and James Baldwin gripping and intimate historical novel of a black soldier’s experience in the Second World War a rare, moving and authentic tale of love and sacrifice by the acclaimed British-Nigerian author of THE BOOK OF ECHOES. Rose and the Burma Sky by Rosanna Amaka Book Cover.

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Tailoring Freedom (2021) by Sasha Huber. Courtesy the artist.

Coming Soon

Exhibitions Rebellion to Romance Until 29 October 2022 Leeds Central Library Rebellion to Romance explores the lives of the city’s second-generation West Indians coming of age in the 1970s and 80s. Their keepsakes of the era will tell a powerful story of young Black people hugely influenced by Jamaican culture, music and style, immersed in their parents’ Caribbean roots yet shaping an identity of their own. Gathered keepsakes and photos of the day curated by Out of Many Festivals Director, Susan Pitter, will sit alongside recreated contemporary portraits by Vanley Burke.

His portraits will capture a generation that can firmly say: “We are Black, we are British, we are West Indian and we are Leeds.”

Blood and Fire: Our Journey Through Vanley Burke’s History Until 30 October 2022 Soho House, Birmingham Evocative images taken by renowned photographer Vanley Burke will join archival material from his personal collection, in a new exhibition opening at Soho House, Handsworth in May, as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival, taking visitors on a journey through the artist’s history and the Black British experience.

JMW Turner with Lamin Fofana: Dark Waters 27 September 2022 – 4 June 2023 Tate Liverpool Although creating work centuries apart, both artists convey the power and politics of the ocean and explore its relationship to capitalism and colonialism.

Turner’s paintings focus on the dangers of the waters around the British coast and Fofana’s sound work looks across the Atlantic. Lamin Fofana translates the writing of pioneering Black authors into sound.

Fofana’s work explores questions of movement, migration, alienation and belonging.

Sasha Huber: You Name It 11 Nov 2022 - 25 Mar 2023 Autograph Using performance, photography and film, among other media, to investigate colonial residues left in the environment. Sasha Huber’s projects conceive of natural spaces — mountains, lakes, rock formations, glaciers, forests, and craters — as contested territories, highlighting the ways in which history is imprinted onto the landscape through acts of remembrance that include memorialisation through naming and the erection of monuments.

The exhibition co-commissioned and co-produced

by Autograph and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Canada). This will be the artist’s first exhibition in the UK. 123

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We Live in Silence IV (2017) by Kudzanai Chiurai. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery.

Coming Soon

Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South 17 March – 18 June 2023 The Royal Academy

Exhibitions continued

Eric Gyamfi: Fixing Shadows; Julius and I (working title) Spring 2023 Autograph First UK solo exhibition of Eric Gyamfi (1990, Ghana) celebrated for his deeply personal photo essays which document contemporary Ghanaian queer lives in black and white photography. In this new body of work, which won the thirteenth Foam Paul Huf Award for artists under 35, Gyamfi uses different techniques to create visual narratives that hover somewhere in between autobiography and fiction, including cyanotype and silk screen printing. Here, the artist blends his own image with a portrait of the late African American queer composer Julius Eastman, producing thousands of photographic composites in the form of cyanotypes and silk screen prints. The work plays on Eastman’s experimental compositions, in which each new score contains elements from all anterior scores. Likewise, Gyamfi produces an endless number of unique variations on the same two images, experimenting with the effects of climatological and other circumstantial conditions on the outcome of the print. The work is scored by WhatsApp voice messages the artist accumulated that provide as many readings of the works as there are individuals.

Supported by the Cockayne Foundation. Gyamfi will also be the 2023 Autograph/Light Work artist-inresidence at Light Work in Syracuse, New York.

Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers brings together sculpture, paintings, reliefs, drawings, and quilts, most of which will be seen in the UK and Europe for the first time. It will also feature the celebrated quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend, Alabama and the neighbouring communities of Rehoboth and Alberta.

Isaac Julien 27 April – 20 August 2023 Tate Britain The first major UK solo exhibition by Isaac Julien reveals the scope of his pioneering work in film and installation from the early 1980s through to the present day. The exhibition highlights Julien’s critical thinking and the way his work breaks down barriers between different artistic disciplines, drawing from film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture by utilising the themes of desire, history and culture.

A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography 6 July 2023 – 14 January 2024 Tate Modern Bringing together a group of artists from different generations, this exhibition will address how photography, film, audio, and more have been used to reimagine Africa’s diverse cultures and historical narratives. Moving beyond a traditional photography exhibition, the show seeks to explore the many ways images travel across histories and geographies.

Using themes of spirituality, identity, urbanism and climate emergency, the exhibition will guide the viewer through dream-like utopias and bustling cityscapes viewed from the artists’ perspectives.

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CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS 2023

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Date

Event

Location

28 December – 6 January

Afrochella

Accra, Ghana

16 January

Martin Luther King Jr Day

USA

24 January

World Day for African and Afrodescendant Culture

Worldwide

24 January

International Association of Blacks In Dance Globally Connected: What Does Our Tomorrow Hold?

Toronto, Canada

February

Black History Month

USA

1 February

Abolition of Slavery Day

Mauritius

3 February

Heroes Day

Mozambique

25 February – 1 March

Carnival

Trinidad, Brazil,

8 March

International Women’s Day

Worldwide

11 March

Moshoeshoe Day

Lesotho

21 March

Human Rights Day

South Africa

29 March Boganda Day

Central African Republic

7 April

Karume Day

Tanzania

22 April

Stephen Lawrence Day

UK

29 April

International Dance Day

Worldwide

29 April – 8 May

Let’s Dance International Frontiers

Leicester, UK

30 April

International Jazz Day

Worldwide

17 – 25 May

Dak’Art Biennale

Dakar, Senegal

5 May

African World Heritage Day

Across Africa

21 May

Afro-Colombian Day (Día de la Afrocolombianidad)

Colombia

Calendar Highlights 2023

Date

Event

Location

21 May

World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

Worldwide

31 May – 3 June

African Futures

Cologne, Germany

1 June

Madaraka Day

Kenya

11 June

AFroFest 2022: Afrobeats Festival

Bristol, UK

19 June

Juneteenth

USA

22 June

Windrush Day

UK

June/July Black Europe Summer School

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

July

Australia

Blak History Month

1 July Keti Koti “Break the Chains”

Oosterpark, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

5 July

Unity Day

Zambia

18 July

Nelson Mandela International Day

Worldwide

August CARIFESTA

Saint Kitts and Nevis

1 August Emancipation Day

Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kits and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos Islands

9 August

International Day of the World’s Indigenous People

Worldwide

23 August

International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition

Worldwide

28 – 29 August

Notting Hill Carnival

London, UK

October

Black History Month

UK

20 November

Black Consciousness Day (Dia da Consciência Negra)

Brazil

26 December – 1 January

Kwanzaa

USA 127

The Interview

VANLEY BURKE

VANLEY BURKE IS A PHOTOGRAPHER AND ARTIST WHOSE WORK ENCAPSULATES THE EXPERIENCES OF THE AFRICAN CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY. HERE, IN CONVERSATION WITH PAWLET BROOKES, HE SHARES AN INSIGHT INTO HIS WORK AND PRACTICE ALONGSIDE HIS ADVICE TO ASPIRING PHOTOGRAPHERS

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The Interview Vanley Burke — Interview By Pawlet Brookes

– FROM THE FOOTHILLS OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS IN JAMAICA TO HANDSWORTH, BIRMINGHAM. WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST MEMORIES OF PHOTOGRAPHY? It’s a question that begs many answers. First seeing pictures was in books, that is where I saw the first photographs. But I was given a camera when I was about 10 years old when I was in Jamaica. My parents had travelled to England and in one of the many birthday parcels, I had a camera. That’s my introduction to the camera. I loved the camera, when I was living in Jamaica. I was intrigued by it. Just the science of it. When I came here, it was more an exploration of that process, but then I sort of wanted more and more information, or should I say knowledge about photography.

I started teaching myself photography by building a darkroom. My first studio was in the cellar of my family’s shop, we had a grocery shop at the time. Later on, at my grandparents’ house, I built a darkroom in what was the coal shed. I became immersed in photography and developed from there.

Dominoes at the Bulls Heads, Lozell Road. 1988 © Vanley Burke. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2022

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– I WOULD LOVE TO TALK MORE ABOUT THE ARCHIVE ACTUALLY, BECAUSE WE HAVE AN ARCHIVE AT SERENDIPITY INSTITUTE FOR BLACK ARTS AND HERITAGE. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE PIECE THAT YOU’VE COLLECTED?

– HOW DID YOU DEVELOP YOUR CAREER THEN AS A PHOTOGRAPHER? DID YOU SEE THE DIFFICULTIES THAT PEOPLE HAVE GETTING INTO A CAREER IN THE ARTS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE BLACK? Well, I think you are looking at it quite differently. You see, I didn’t think of career. I didn’t somehow plan a career in the arts. When I was still living in St. Thomas and you see the planes flying overhead, you wonder where these people are going. What I try to do is imagine a friend of mine who has never been to this country, what would they like to know about this place? When I got here, the idea of answering some of those questions became quite interesting. I decided it was important to document the Black community. I wasn’t happy with what information we had in the press at the time, it was quite negative and depressing. I wanted to redress that. We should concentrate on writing our own history. I broke the project down into different sections; politics, health or mental health issues, you know, subdivided education, religion and so on, formal and informal education, in an attempt to cover all aspects. But my interest was to document the African Caribbean community.

Then, when it was about thirty years since the Windrush, I decided I’d lost information for people who came earlier. I started collecting ephemera. I think one of the first things I started collecting was newspapers. I started getting interested when a single Black person appeared on the front page of all the newspapers and it became pretty much anything I could get my hands on. That’s how the archive began, there’s more to say about that but we’ll move on.

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I think that it is also perhaps one of the most delicate. It’s a piece of paper that the family in Jamaica were using to calculate the fee to send someone to England. On there you see, written in pencil, the cost of going by ship and the cost to go by plane. The paper is quite delicate now it’s falling apart. I have many things really that have been given to me. My house is full. In fact, the contents of my flat were on exhibition at the Ikon gallery. That’s pretty well everything except my bed. Mine is really about how do we retain information; how do we archive for those who weren’t able to, or for those who would like to know. A lot of the time we are so busy living life we are not seeing what’s happening around us. When they have time, people can have a look at it and enjoy the past.

In fact, you know, someone once said my house “is full of dead people sum’n”. I will collect anything that will fit in the house that I think relates to our experience. I don’t judge it, I don’t make a judgement of its value, because its value exists. For example, a paraffin lamp I have. If 10 people see the paraffin lamp and 10 people have different stories about it. Some will be perhaps about how they love the images it formed on the ceiling, others might be that they might stand by it and scorch their coat to claim on the insurance, the people who talk about their family member dying as a result of the fire. We need to try and explain some of those details of life. Always been looking at the big picture and somehow, you’re undermining our relationship with each other and ourselves and how we become. The material is about states of becoming.

– WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR MOST FAVOURITE MOMENT AS A PHOTOGRAPHER? I don’t have favourites, I really don’t. I enjoy taking photographs. I’ve been to South Africa on several occasions.

First it was the release of President Mandela from Robben Island; I didn’t actually photograph his release. Instead, I photographed the people in South Africa at the time, because listening to some of the stories it seems that there were many “Mandelas” then. On a second visit I went to Robben Island with some of the people who were prisoners on the island themselves. That for me, those moments, hearing their stories, are my favourite moments around the photographs.

The Interview Vanley Burke — Interview By Pawlet Brookes

A lot of the time we are so busy living life we are not seeing what’s happening around us. When they have time, people can have a look at it and enjoy the past.

A group of young men jostle for prime position in front of the camera. 1977 © Vanley Burke. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2022

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We don’t have Black community centres, we don’t have pubs and clubs where you can have a chat, it doesn’t exist anymore.

– YOU ARE KNOWN AS THE GODFATHER OF BLACK BRITISH PHOTOGRAPHY; HOWEVER, YOU ALSO CREATE A SPECTACULAR COLLAGE. HOW DOES YOUR APPROACH TO MAKING A COLLAGE DIFFER? It’s quite interesting that you asked that. I’ve always stuck pieces of paper you know, it’s the juxtaposition when you are in a darkroom and when you are dealing with a lot of photographs in a space, they create their own their own stories, particularly when they’re lying on top of each other.

I decided that I would start examining people’s approach to being given a photograph by creating a different sort of narrative using elements are different photographs. I was also trying to understand to see if I could create something that would have a greater impact, other than the straight documentary photography.

– STUART HALL DESCRIBED YOUR WORK AS “CONSTRUCTING LIFE RATHER THAN CAPTURING IT”. MARK SEALY SAID THAT YOUR WORK IS “HAVING A BLOODY LONG CONVERSATION”.

WHAT CHANGES HAVE YOU NOTICED IN YOUR WORK IN CONVERSING WITH YOUR AUDIENCES OVER THE YEARS AND OTHER DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD? I wonder sometimes when you put a photograph on the wall, what everyone else sees in the photograph. If I’m doing a portrait, I’m composing the portrait, or if it’s a documentary scene presenting something that I see and feel. It’s always difficult to the viewer. I’ve always thought that about only 50% of what I see or feel are in the photographs. There’s a lot that goes on in the construction of the photograph, the way it is framed, all of that. I felt somehow, I wasn’t succeeding in getting the word across. It wasn’t just to the viewer it was to the wider artistic environment, galleries and critics. Not that I pay much attention to the critics.

Although I had been getting good feedback, I said to myself, if I decide I’m going to burn it in Handsworth Park, who would care? I was in Handsworth Park and mentioned this to one young man. He said, “they’re not yours to burn”.

There are times when I would gladly give up photography, but I didn’t choose it, it chose me.

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There is one piece of work, Handsworth Voices, which hasn’t really been shown. Although it was in the exhibition of my entire flat and there are details of this specific piece on the 22 windows of the MAC, Midlands Arts Centre, in Birmingham.

But as a piece of work, it hasn’t been seen too much. And I was basically trying to tell if you’d like a similar story with the collages as I was doing with the photographs, and if I might indulge for a minute, they took me about nine years to create. On the borders of this piece of work, they assert several texts, several conversations taking place and it doesn’t go in a linear fashion goes back on itself, so there’s actually no starting point. It’s like life. Once you become conscious of race, you really never leave the conversation until you die. It’s about entering that conversation on where we enter, endless conversations goes round and round which is interrupted by all the words and names until you reach the middle of collage, which is my interpretation.

Coming back to photography and I think we have become very familiar with photographs, we see it in newspapers, we see it in books, magazines, on television and I think as a result, people just look and move on. When I think about Boy with the Flag, which is a popular image. When I took that one, it was the timing that the flag should be on the horizon and the park and the pavement pointing towards his head was like an arrow. That was that a split-second decision, I had to do that whilst the flag was flying and we had a brief gust of wind.

The Interview Vanley Burke — Interview By Pawlet Brookes

Man with suitcase from the Migrant Voices Project 2022 © Vanley Burke. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2022

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Young girls sitting on a wall in Charleville Road, Handsworth. 1991 © Vanley Burke. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2022

The Interview Vanley Burke — Interview By Pawlet Brookes

– I THINK WE’VE LOST OUR ABILITY TO JUST TAKE A MOMENT AND PAUSE AND TAKE IN WHAT’S AROUND US. BLOOD AND FIRE: OUR JOURNEY THROUGH VANLEY BURKE’S HISTORY IS CURRENTLY ON AT SOHO HOUSE IN BIRMINGHAM, AND IT WAS CURATED AFTER THE FIRE THAT DESTROYED SOME OF YOUR ARCHIVES. HAS THIS AFFECTED YOUR VIEWPOINT ON COLLECTING? The fire really was many years ago, I’ve always been archiving. What happened there was a shed at the bottom of my garden, I was married then and needless to say I couldn’t put all the stuff in my house.

– I KNOW THAT FEELING… I had photographs all over the walls and all the materials I put in a plan chest in the shed, posters and things like that and photographs from previous exhibitions that were the largest. I was home in the evening a neighbour knocked the door and said I hope you don’t mind me telling you, your shed is on fire. I went down and they couldn’t get through the door because it was so full, they went through the roof and everything was quite wet. On a hot day I put them out on the grass to dry. My friend James from Birmingham Library said why don’t you put them in the library so that’s how the archive at the library came about.

I believe very strongly, think that we should be in charge of our own archive, custodian of our own archive. To understand it, learn from it, make mistakes with it. At some point we aim to collect one of every book, written by Black people in Britain. As we know books are important, in collecting that in one place, in the act of scouring the earth we find ourselves.

– I COULDN’T AGREE WITH YOU MORE. HOW DO YOU FEEL TECHNOLOGY HAS CHANGED THE WAY WE DOCUMENT AND PHOTOGRAPH? I think technology has enabled us to take more photographs.

Again, if you want to look at the work of a war photographer, as opposed to someone who lives in a war, they will take a slightly different approach to the whole thing. It’s become much more readily available, anyone can photograph and put it on the internet and it’s there for all to see. But we don’t archive that material as much as we should or could. I don’t think there is a problem with technology and that we need to go back to film. I think we just organise ourselves. What I suggest is to take a series of photographs every month, edit that each month and then do that for 12 months. Go back and re-edit those photographs and go and make yourself a yearbook. You can use as your family history for your relationship with others, or just your creativity.

– DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER SORT OF WORDS OF WISDOM FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN BECOMING A PHOTOGRAPHER OR ARTIST? I don’t think I could ask anyone to do what I did, it was a bit much. It wasn’t always easy. I had support from the family. I didn’t ever have one time where my family were like “go and get a proper job”. For example, my mother decided she would go to evening class to study photography when I would study English, they were both on at the same time. I would say it’s about dedication. You don’t need to go very far to start. It’s about starting the process and getting hooked in the nature of it. I don’t think the family is documented enough. You have the authentic resolve to take some wonderful, sensitive images of people that a visiting photographer wouldn’t.

– YES, YOU LEARN THESE THINGS AS YOU GO ALONG. WHAT DO YOU HAVE COMING UP NEXT? It never really stops. I have been working on this project A Gift to Birmingham with Migrant Voice, University of Birmingham and Ikon Gallery. We talked about refugees’, people coming and taking, but what is their gift to Birmingham? Although I ask people to bring things, I’m more interested in them. They are a gift to Birmingham.

I’m also working in Leeds in a series of photographs Rebellion to Romance photographing the lives of the city’s second-generation West Indians. What I decided to do was take photographs of them in a park. Houses and interiors have been under the microscope for a long time. I’m interested in how we move around public spaces and taking the park as an example of this whole history, the relationship with the park, carnivals, the romances…

– HOW WE OCCUPIED SPACE IS IMPORTANT AND AS YOU SAID HOW IT’S CHANGED AS WELL. We don’t have Black community centres, we don’t have pubs and clubs where you can have a chat, it doesn’t exist anymore.

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I’m the victim and I’m also the perpetrator. I’ve also produced a series of photographs, where I went to London to photograph spaces where people have died in the absence of any evidence.

– I THINK WE DO NEED TO TALK ABOUT TORTURE.

– IT’S BEEN ABOUT INTEGRATION AND ASSIMILATION; YOU CAN SEE WHOLE COMMUNITIES HAVE DISAPPEARED. As well as photographs, I do make work on these topics sometimes, for example I made a life-size diagram of a slave ship on the bank of the river Zambia. I have been looking at torture through paintings that created these slave narratives to guide enslaved Africans. My approach to it is based on an exhibition I had done previously which is Sugar Coated Tears where I had me shackles and restraints, for this one we have some clothes, take them apart and tie them to the ground. That in itself becomes quite sort of traumatic in the exercise, I’m realising I’ve almost stepped into performance art, because the act of applying the paint, the pain, to the closest thing to your skin, the second skin, was very butcherous to me. I’m the victim and I’m also the perpetrator. I’ve also produced a series of photographs, where I went to London to photograph spaces where people have died in the absence of any evidence.

– I THINK IT REALISTICALLY IS ALSO A REFLECTION. WHETHER WE’RE TALKING ABOUT GEORGE FLOYD, STEPHEN LAWRENCE, CHILD Q. THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN GIVEN A NAME. IT’S ALL THE INVISIBLE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TORTURED AS WELL; OTHERS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN GIVEN NAMES. I’ve been talking to people who remember people being tied to a tree and beaten in their lifetime.

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I also make a series of jackets, a conversation in jackets.

There is a jacket of nails, it is heavy, but it’s wearable. Then I made one out of the bible, it’s like a strait jacket, I just don’t think I’ll be able to get out of it if I put it on. There’s another one about debt. I’ve never made vanity, but vanity is another one I’m thinking of and that’s where I wanted to cover the whole of the jacket with hair.

– I USED TO WORK AT THE ARNOLFINI AND THERE WAS AN ARTIST THAT DID SOMETHING SIMILAR WITH HAIR. IT’S REALLY CREEPY WHEN YOU DO IT WITH HAIR. BUT HAIR IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT THING IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY AS WELL. THANK YOU SO MUCH VANLEY, I COULD SIT AND TALK TO YOU ABOUT SO MANY THINGS. HOWEVER, FINALLY WHAT SONG WOULD YOU RECOMMEND BE PART OF THE BLACKINK PLAYLIST? Have you heard my Desert Island Discs?

I DID. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. I’VE LISTENED TO IT A COUPLE OF TIMES. The first track is one of my favourites, a field recording of Jamaican Folk Music. Another that sort of keeps coming out in my head, perhaps it is a wish for those future photographers is Leo Graham’s ‘Not Giving Up’. He talks about if you want something don’t give up, it’s going to be hard. I mean I’ve decided many times I would give up, but I think the perseverance pays off.

The Interview Vanley Burke — Interview By Pawlet Brookes

Boy with a flag, Wilfred, in Handsworth Park. 1970 © Vanley Burke. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2022

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“True resistance begins with people confronting pain...and wanting to do something to change it.” bell hooks

ISSN Number: 2634-4289