BlackInk Issue 5

ISSUE 5 OCTOBER 2024

BLACK MANIFESTO! AFTERMATHS NORA CHIPAUMIRE

WATER IS POLITICAL ZANDILE NDHLOVU

THE INTERVIEW BARONESS LOLA YOUNG

LAUNCHPAD

ZITA HOLBOURNE PRECIOUS SERONGA SAMANTHA M THOMPSON

BlackInk Issue 5, October 2024 Published by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage Serendipity 8 Bowling Green Street Leicester LE1 6AT

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 2024 Company registration number in England and Wales 07248813 Charity registration number in England and Wales 1160035 Editor-in-Chief — Pawlet Brookes Contributors — Ricardo Anderson, Maya Brookes, Pawlet Brookes, A’Keitha Carey, nora chipaumire, Roges Doglas, Sonja Dumas, Tasmin Evans, Tara Gbolade, Hafsa Hirsi, Zita Holbourne, Nezrine Hudson, Caroline Johnson, LisaDionne Morris , Zandile Ndhlovu, Cláudia Nwabasili, Nicholas Okwulu, Clary Salandy, Precious Seronga, Selasi Setufe, Victoria Showunmi, Quentin Sledge, Francesca Sobande, L’Antoinette Stines, Michelle Mother Hubbard, Aphra Le Levier-Bennett, Thomas Talawa Prestø, Jamie J Thompson, Samantha M Thompson, Baroness Lola Young.

Cover Wrap Image — Geraldine’s Joy, portrait of Geraldine Connor and The First Muse, portrait of Fanny Eaton by Valerie Asiimwe Amani.

Strive for Justice, portrait of Dorothy Kuyu and An Ode to Leonora, portrait of Leonora Stapleton by Yvadney Davis.

Joy of the Carnival Queen, portrait of Carmen Beckford and Raceophillia, portrait of Annie Yellowe Palma by Gayle Ebose.

The Unknown Suffragette, portrait of Jessie M Soga and Beyond Containment, portrait of Claudia Jones by Grace Lee. Five-Finger Boogie, portrait of Winifred Atwell and Voice of the Voiceless, portrait of Una Marson, by Lauryn Pinard.

Back Cover Quote — Maud Sulter from “As a Blackwoman” (1985) Akira Press Researchers — Lauren Eaton, Tasmin Evans, Hafsa Hirsi, Amy Grain, Georgina Payne, Nadine Walton Design — the unloved Special Thanks — Paul Brookes, Thomas Talawa Prestø, Maud Sulter Estate and Cara Thompson ISSN: 2634-4270 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 the 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: Carnival

30

Launchpad

46

Forgotten Histories

74

Arts and Culture

100

AfroManifesto

118

Place and Space

142

BlackInk New Writing Competition

152

Spotlight: 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark

156

2024 in Numbers

158

Calendar Highlights

160

Coming Soon

164

The Interview – Baroness Lola Young

The Power is in the MAS — Clary Salandy Junkanoo/Junka(new): The History and Aesthetic Contributions of a Bahamian Cultural Performance — A’Keitha Carey The Hip as a Weapon: Further Reflections — Sonja Dumas Brazilian Carnivals: Festivity, Transgression and Revolution — Cláudia Nwabasili and Roges Doglas Derby Carnival: A Personal Reflection — Nezrine Hudson Black Women; Standing Up For All Of Us — Zita Holbourne Afro Hair Portraits and History — Precious Seronga How Much Is Too Much? — Samantha M Thompson

Black Female Academics’ Health and Psychological Markers: The Impact of Serenity’ — Lisa-Dionne Morris and Ricardo Anderson Black Women: Shaping Success on a White Canvas — Victoria Showunmi Searching for Christena — Tasmin Evans The Eroticised Gaze — Hafsa Hirsi L’Antech’s Tendvalou: DECOLONISATION of the spirit, mind and body through DAAANCE — L’Antoinette Stines Hidden Dance Vocabularies: An Act of Cultural Illiteracy — Thomas Talawa Prestø Familiarity with trauma does not make it acceptable — Quentin Sledge Coming to Voice through Capoeira: Black Woman Embody a History — Ana Paz Black Manifesto! Aftermaths — nora chipaumire Dreaming of Joy — Caroline Johnson Black Women’s Technologies of Imagination and Interiority — Francesca Sobande The Unspoken Truth: Black Femicide — Maya Brookes

Claiming Space — Jamie J Thompson Water is Political — Zandile Ndhlovu Black Females in Architecture/Socially Responsible Design — Selasi Setufe Black Women in Architecture and Design: Pioneering Change and Innovation — Tara Gbolade Building Stronger Communities — Nicholas Okwulu Mek Sense — Aphra Le Levier-Bennett Hush Child! — Michelle Mother Hubbard

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EDITOR’ WELCOM Welcome to the fifth edition of BlackInk, published by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage. For this edition we are exploring the theme of Black Women: Invisible Power, celebrating and championing the voices and stories of Black women who have navigated the paradox of invisibility/hypervisibility to empower others and make positive change.

We are delighted that this issue features contributors from the founder of the Black Female Academics’ Network, the Co-Director of Black Females in Architecture and the first Black female freediving instructor in South Africa, amongst a collective of writers from the emerging to the established. As esteemed Black feminist theorist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw notes:

“the intersection of racism and sexism factors into Black women’s lives in ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking at the race or gender dimensions of those experiences separately” Crenshaw (1991, p. 1244)

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As noted in the last edition, 2024 is a significant year for Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage and the project 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark. Over the last year five visual artists - Valerie Asimwe Amani, Yvadney Davis, Gayle Ebose, Grace Lee and Lauryn Pinard - have been working to create 100 portraits of Black women with a connection to Britain and Ireland. We are delighted to have five different covers for BlackInk Issue 5, each showcasing the work of a different artist and a selection of the portraits created. An exclusive entrée on this exhibition can be found in the Spotlight section, alongside the contributors in this issue who are also part of this line-up.

Carnival is known for its subversion of norms. As the dedicated artform for this edition, we journey across the Caribbean and Latin America to the UK exploring the traditions, memories and costumes. The articles in this section acknowledge the movers and shakers (in every sense of the phrase) that through artistic practice and advocacy have created legacy.

Editor’s Welcome — Pawlet Brookes

’S ME

This year’s cohort for Launchpad features three Black women creatives exploring poetry, illustration and lithography. Although focusing on different artistic practices, the works are united by tenacity and tenderness, inspired by the ethos to see and be seen.

BlackInk New Writing competition returns with the two winners, again focusing on amplifying Black women’s voices. One of the judges, Cara Thompson, described the finalists as an “exciting, dynamic celebration of the power of the tongue and of the pen as a tool for eternalising the voice”.

There is an added richness to exploring key issues through the dedicated lens of Black womanhood and I hope that you enjoy reading this issue and will continue to join us throughout the forthcoming year, through our publications, in person and online platforms.

How To Scan A QR Code

The articles in BlackInk Issue 5 consider a broad range of forgotten histories. In this issue you will find: the personal experiences that have shaped academic success; how lived experience influences the creation of spaces both figuratively and architecturally; the codification and dissemination of dance practice from across the Diaspora; the trailblazers safeguarding the environment; and the little known but widely felt impact of the Chistena disaster.

It was also a delight to interview Baroness Lola Young for this edition, as she reflected on the challenges and triumphs of her fruitful, yet perhaps unconventional, career path into politics.

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.

Reference Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.

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INSIGHT CARNIV 8

Insight: Carnival

T: VAL

Carnival is a tradition that has its roots across cultures and generations. Internationally, carnival has provided a forum for resistance, social political commentary and subversion of norms. In the UK, 2024 marks sixty-five years since the first “Caribbean Carnival” was held in St Pancras Town Hall, organised by Claudia Jones. The contributors to this section discuss uncovering the masquerade, the politicisation of the female body in carnival, the hidden links to ancestral memory and the defining forces that keep communities connected.

The Power is in the MAS — Clary Salandy Junkanoo/Junka(new): The History and Aesthetic Contributions of a Bahamian Cultural Performance — A’Keitha Carey The Hip as a Weapon: Further Reflections — Sonja Dumas Brazilian Carnivals: Festivity, Transgression and Revolution — Cláudia Nwabasili and Roges Doglas Derby Carnival: A Personal Reflection — Nezrine Hudson

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THE POWER IS IN THE MAS FOR MANY PEOPLE THE NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL IS JUST A FUN EXPERIENCE. A FREE STREET SPACE TO JAM UP, JUMP UP, WINE DOWN, PLAY LOUD MUSIC, SELL FOOD, SELL COSTUMES, MAKE MONEY.

To the authorities it is an irritation but to the Mas makers and musicians it is compelling! There is a calling in our souls for the rhythms, melodies, visions and enactments to rise up and manifest the power of the ancestral voice through the ritual of carnival.

Inside each of us are unique histories, skills, dances, colourful cultural expressions that exist in our DNA and that link us always to the cultural mix from which we have evolved.

Carnival is a mirror of who we are. Our identity is laid bare for all to see through the choices we make on carnival day.

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Insight: Carnival The Power is in the MAS — Clary Salandy

I am a Black woman carnival designer, living and working in 2024 England; this is only possible because of the torturous journey of those gone before me. I owe my cultural identity to them. From the suffering of slavery to the injustice of a racist society, the fight for the existence of the Notting Hill Carnival over 50 years is evidence of the Black community’s lived experience of racism in the UK. Let me give some examples of my work.

– SPIRIT OF EMANCIPATION This Mas is an expression of emancipation. During the dramatic portrayal, three effigies are bent over, held captive by the performer. When she releases them, they rise up, set free to sway and dance.

The headdress is an abstract sculpture of the body bent over, hands bound together, reminiscent of a figure in pain.

This was designed as part of a theme ‘Freedom Song’ which commemorated the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade performed at Notting Hill Carnival in 2007. It also embodies the concept of the Trinity.

Clary Salandy in her studio. PA Images / Alamy

Over the 400 years of slavery and after, there were attempts to deny the strengths and talents of the Black race by forbidding the slaves to use their native language or to practice any of their cultural rituals. The banning of the drum in Trinidad in 1877 was part of the oppression of the Black community by the British colonial rulers. This was an attempt to suppress the rhythm, the heartbeat of the people.

It did not work! Instead of erasing the cultural heritage of the slaves, it ignited a burning desire for self-expression in successive generations that gave rise to the powerful art forms of mas, calypso and pan, gifts from the past to the people of today. There for us to take to the next level in commemoration of the fact that we are here because we are descended from the strong ones who survived.

I hold these carnival arts in the highest esteem. We owe it to those who fought for us to be free to use these carnival art forms to amplify our voices, to show the creative genius of our cultural inheritance.

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For me, carnival is an act of defiance. Participating is the statement. You can’t kill the spirit of a people. You can clearly see the roots of African initiation and other ritual traditions alive in carnival today.

Mahogany is a creative team of carnivalists for whom creating mas for the Notting Hill Carnival has been a main focus over 32 years. As the designer for Mahogany, I am the dreamer and with Speedy (Michael Ramdeen) we lead a talented group of creatives who bring the dreams to life.

I come up with the vision and Speedy and the team make the dream a reality. They are a highly skilled group of artists, several of them family members, and community volunteers, many of whom have worked with Mahogany over 25 years and are now experts in their chosen field. We nurture the art skills of our community during the creation of carnival.

Mahogany are visual griots, holding true to the African oral story-telling tradition. Each costume has a meaning and a part to play in the visual narrative of the theme. Themes are chosen to reflect a contemporary context, so that they resonate with the community and are a social commentary, one of the traditional characteristics of carnival.

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– RIP TRIBUTE TO GEORGE The face of George Floyd hovers above the man in the mask. The mask is transparent evoking a sense of the spirit realm, as George will forever be in our memory. The power is in the Mas. For me, carnival is an act of defiance. Participating is the statement. You can’t kill the spirit of a people. You can clearly see the roots of African initiation and other ritual traditions alive in carnival today.

– THE DOGAN DAMA FUNERAL RITUAL Their masks symbolise the space between heaven and earth.

They have spiritual significance as part of the funeral rite.

Insight: Carnival The Power is in the MAS — Clary Salandy

Rise up, find your talent and let it be your voice.

Close your eyes and let your creativity flow from your soul.

– SYMPHONY OF LIGHT Symphony of Light explores light in all its forms. The head sits in the space between heaven and earth, rays of light radiate like the sun from the golden face, they symbolise enlightenment. The 90 metres of hand-painted silk is light as it passes through a prism bursting out into the spectrum of colour. The performer is the light within. Her energy makes the mas live. Light is a very important symbol. To light the way to help others find their way. It pays reverence to the eternal divine light. The light of the world.

Although coming from the Black experience, the Notting Hill Carnival is an inclusive celebration, contributing to the social cohesion of the capital city of London. Bringing the designs to life is a shared experience that engages people from a diverse range of backgrounds. Together we strive for ingenuity in our approach through the creative making process, pooling our skills to bring the designs to life. Each design is a challenge for the makers to solve. From the innovative metal work and engineering to the sculptural use of fabric and foam, the costume must blend seamlessly with the body of the performer to enable a dramatic performance of the Mas.

Carnival has been a battleground for freedom. For me it is a space for freedom of expression through which we can challenge stereotypes and generate a sense of belonging to our children born in the UK. Bringing children up in their culture is a key part of Mahogany’s ethos.

– ARRIVING IN WAVES A tribute to the Windrush generation, who responded to the invitation from the British government to come to rebuild Britain. From the theme ‘Building Greatness’ commemorating 70 years of the Windrush generation and standing with the community in the light of the Windrush scandal.

– WORTH OUR WEIGHT IN GOLD The headdress depicts Black hands rising from the bow of a ship, holding up Britain. The Black community has been at the heart of what made Britain great.

– CARNIVAL IS OUT RITE Rise up, find your talent and let it be your voice. Close your eyes and let your creativity flow from your soul.

– OUT OF THE BLUE Many ideas and opportunities come ‘Out of the Blue’ but what is the blue?

This design begins as a sea of blue that transforms, opening to show the vivid colours representing ideas in the complex web of our consciousness. But, most important, is the captivating performance as the Mas moves, revealing the ingenuity of the craftsmanship, the energy of the performer and how imagination, materials and skill can make inspiring and unforgettable moments.

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JUNKANOO/ JUNKA(NEW): THE HISTORY AND AESTHETIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF A BAHAMIAN CULTURAL PERFORMANCE INTRODUCTION KALIK, KALIK, KALIKING, KALIK, KALIK, KALIK, KALIK, KALIK (HEY). KALIK IS THE SOUND THAT THE COWBELL MAKES AND IS ALSO A PRIMARY INSTRUMENT IN THE JUNKANOO PARADE. I HAVE MANY FOND MEMORIES OF THIS FESTIVAL. I RECALL WAKING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AS A YOUNG CHILD ON BOXING DAY TO WATCH THE BEAUTIFUL VIBRANT IMAGES OF ELABORATE COSTUMES JUMPIN’ AND DANCIN’ IN THE JUNKANOO PARADE ON THE TELEVISION DEPICTING THE THEME OF EACH GROUP AND HEARING THIS VERY DISTINCTIVE SOUND. I ALSO REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME MY GRANDPARENTS TOOK MY COUSINS AND I TO THE PARADE.

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Insight: Carnival Junkanoo/Junka(new): The History and Aesthetic Contributions of a Bahamian Cultural Performance — A’Keitha Carey

We were live and in colour on Bay Street (the central location of the festival in Nassau, Bahamas) about to view the celebration. As we walked close to the extravaganza, I could see pieces of costumes in the street made from cardboard, feather[s], glitter, and crepe paper. The beat of the drums, whistles, bells, horns, and the brass band intensified as we got closer to the procession. I shivered with excitement waiting to see and feel what I saw on the television.1 This paper is an autoethnographic/ethnographic study of Bahamian Junkanoo and its aesthetic contributions. The author discusses the history of Junkanoo and how she engages in Katherine Dunham’s “repositories of memory2” and “research to performance method3” bringing elements of Junkanoo to the concert stage and in the classroom.

This work also serves as a recovery project, adding to the Bahamian dance history archive.

The costumes, music and dancing do not disappoint; the ancestral spirit is bussin’ t(h)rough di place, and the heartbeat of the drums and horn section are beyond anything earthly.

Musicians rushin’ on Bay Street with the Colours Junkanoo Group. Photorapher Douglas Barkey.

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– THE HISTORY OF JUNKANOO IN THE BAHAMAS

– CARIDAD BAHAMIAN WARRIOR WOMAN

Junkanoo is an amalgamation of West African and Central African sacred rituals and traditions that were imported in the British colonies between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries due to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (DeCosmo 2003, Bethel 2003, and Bethel 1990). Junkanoo, John Canoe, or jankunu is a Caribbean cultural expression of enslaved Africans who were granted three days off during the Christmas season. Through the criticism of church leaders and the elite minority, protests of working-class Black Bahamians, and the banning of the parade multiple times, the celebration now takes place on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. There were three stages of Junkanoo: Early Stages (1800 – 1899), Middle (1900 – 1967), The Third Stage (1967 – present) (DeCosmo 2003 and Bethel 1990); each era demonstrates how the festival/parade evolved from a religious practice/ritual where masks were used to connect with the ancestors and conceal their identities, then shifting to a secularised form of public resistance addressing “political injustice and economic hardship”, and lastly to its current iteration of an expression of culture and nationalistic pride.

Caridad 2022 is a 20-minute solo work that explores transnationalism, African spirituality, Caribbean identity, and erotic performance6. Using Katherine Dunham’s “repositories of memory” and “research to performance method,” the author brings elements of Junkanoo to the concert stage. CariDad 2022 was created for Black History Month in conjunction with an art exhibition at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami, Florida and is inspired by Mothership by Pepe Mar, illustrating the intricate colour palate, assemblage, and attention to detail by the artist as well as Bahamian Junkanoo performance and aesthetics. Performer and choreographer A’Keitha Carey engages with biomythography 7, exploring the mythological Bahamian Warrior Woman Caridad, the daughter of the river goddess Oshun, goddaughter of Ogun, and protected under the Damballah loa.

It has evolved from its roots of protests where Blacks fought against systemic oppression placed upon them by the white minority (DeCosmo 2003, Bethel 2003, and Bethel 1990).

These embodied protests included drumming, singing, and dancing where citizens took to the streets to express their frustrations. Traditionally, the Junkanoo festival “represents poverty, wealth, discipline, and rebellion, competition and cooperation, creative genius, and physical prowess” (Bethel 2003).

Today, Junkanoo maintains these same traditions, functioning as a Black folk expression, demonstrating Caribbean cultural performance that showcases the strength of Black Bahamians not only as leaders but as dancers, visual artists and musicians. Junkanooers4, rush5 in dynamic visually stimulating costumes that represent their chosen theme for the parade. Costumes of the oldtime parade consisted of sponge, newspapers, strips of cloth, leaves and bushes (DeCosmo 2003), while costumes in the twenty-first century include cardboard, crepe paper, rhinestones, feathers, and chicken wire to offer flexibility and mobility. The costumes, music and dancing do not disappoint; the ancestral spirit is bussin’ t(h)rough di place, and the heartbeat of the drums and horn section are beyond anything earthly.

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Carey enters the space ringing the cowbell. Cleansing the atmosphere and activating the power of the ancestors, she performs African Diaspora spirituality, rituals and elements of Junkanoo. Carey’s attention to costuming and props, through masking, the use of the whistle, blowing of the conch shell, and the deconstruction of the word ‘kalik” which is included in the spoken word section of the sound scape, prepares her for transformation.

Inspired by Zora Neal Hurston’s “choreographing the folk,” ideology (Kraut 2008), Carey brings the invisible history of Bahamian Junkanoo in the classroom through The Junkanoo Project8 which highlights the pedagogical and aesthetic contributions of Bahamian artists (performing and visual) and CaribFunk9 which offers students a “Caribglobal10 experience, encouraging a journey that recognizes a creolized movement vocabulary and philosophy” demonstrated in African Diasporic societies (Carey 2018, 235-241).

Insight: Carnival Junkanoo/Junka(new): The History and Aesthetic Contributions of a Bahamian Cultural Performance — A’Keitha Carey Footnotes

References

1.

This memory was written by the author in “Junkanoo and Carnival as Theoretical Frameworks: A Pedagogical Narrative,” page 23 (2016).

Bethel, Clement. (1990) “Junkanoo in The Bahamas.

“Front Matter.” Caribbean Quarterly 36(3/4). http:// www.jstor.org/stable/23050433.

2.

Osumare (2010) Memories and recollections of the past that are connected to “Black Atlantic experiences.”

3.

Osumare (2010) Black Atlantic experiences, histories and memories are re-enacted, recreated, and embodied, performed on the stage, interpreting lived histories of the ancestors.

4.

Those who participate in the festival.

5.

The physical act of being on Bay Street where the parade takes place and moving/dancing in the procession.

6.

A term that the author is expounding on in her dissertation research which includes 9 elements: power, play, sensuality, sexuality, virtuosity, spirituality, autonomy, desire, and freedom.

7.

Lorde (1982) A term coined By Audre Lorde which is defined as combining history, biography, and mythmaking.

8.

Carey (2016) An interdisciplinary class project where the students organise themselves as a Junkanoo group showcasing their investigation of the history, aesthetics, and creativity of Junkanoo in the Bahamas. The students ‘rush’ on campus in a Junkanoo parade.

9.

A fusion dance technology that incorporates traditional and social Afro-Caribbean, classical ballet, modern, and fitness elements that identifies that the body as a site of knowledge which illuminates the transformative performances of the pelvis as experienced in Caribbean cultural performances (Bahamian Junkanoo, Jamaican Dancehall and Trinidadian Carnival).

Bethel, Nicolette. (2003) “Junkanoo in the Bahamas: A Tale of Identity.” PhD Diss. Retrieved from researchgate.net. (279193531).

Carey, A’Keitha. (2018) Carey, A. “CaribFunk Technique: A New Feminist/Womanist Futuristic Technology in Black Dance Studies “in Higher Education” in the United States in Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied Practices. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Carey, A’Keitha. (2016) “Junkanoo and Carnival as Theoretical Frameworks: A Pedagogical Narrative,” Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies: Talking Black Dance: Inside Out/Outside In, vol. xxxvi, 21-27.

DeCosmo, Janet. (2003) “Junkanoo: The African Cultural Connection in Nassau, Bahamas,” The Western Journal of Black Studies, 27(4).

King, Rosamond S. (2016) Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination. Gainesville: The University Press of Florida.

Kraut, Anthea. (2008) Choreographing the Folk: The Dance Staging of Zora Neal Hurston. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Lorde, Audre. (1982) Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Berkely: Crossing Press.

Osumare, Halifu. (2010) Dancing the Black Atlantic: Katherine Dunham’s Research-to-Performance Method. (2010). AmeriQuests, 7(2). https://doi. org/10.15695/amqst.v7i2.165

10. A term coined by Rosamond King which she defines as a globalised Caribbean experience without geographic boundaries, one which offers language to describe Caribbean phenomena.

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Dancers in Trinidad (1955). Photographer Norman James /Toronto Star / Getty Images.

Insight: Carnival The Hip as a Weapon: Further Reflections — Sonja Dumas

THE HIP AS A WEAPON: FURTHER REFLECTIONS I HAVE BEEN THINKING, TALKING AND WRITING ABOUT THE HIP AS A WEAPON IN THE CONTEXT OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO “WINING” FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS. IN PREVIOUS ITERATIONS, I DREW A PARALLEL BETWEEN THE HIP AS A WEAPON AND FELA KUTI’S TREATISE THAT MUSIC IS THE WEAPON. I SEE THEM AS SIMILAR PROJECTS OF SELF-EMANCIPATION; FELA KUTI SAW MUSIC AS A CONDUIT TO FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSIVE NEO-COLONIAL STATE GOVERNANCE; I SEE THE HIP MOVEMENTS OF WINING AS A CONDUIT FOR THE INDIVIDUAL BODY TO ACCESS PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSIVE AND GENERATIONAL COLONIALITIES. MY TECHNICAL DEFINITION OF WINING GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS: “THE ROTATION, GYRATION OR OSCILLATION OF THE PELVIC AREA, USUALLY IN A RHYTHMIC WAY, IN A FESTIVE ENVIRONMENT”. HOWEVER, ITS ADDITIONAL LAYERS OF MEANING MAKE THE HIP, BY WAY OF THE “WINE”, A METAPHORICAL WEAPON.

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I ascribe the word itself - a contraction of the word “winding” (and please do not embrace or write “whining”, which is an entirely different proposition) - as well as the action itself, to a Caribbean way of embodying resistance, of freeing the self and of reflecting the Caribbean imagination. The term “winding” in relation to active hips likely came from the Europeans’ labelling of the African dances they witnessed in the colonial Afro-Atlantic world. They saw the Africans dancing to what they considered crude percussion, and the deliberate activation of the hips, which incorporated circular movement of the groin and buttocks, was considered way too sexual and primitive to be validated in colonial culture.

From at least as early as 1722, Europeans travelling and writing about the Caribbean recorded how scandalised they were by what they witnessed. But the rotation and gyration of those hips became a corporeal weapon of choice for the Afro-Atlantic inhabitants of the Caribbean. It reached into the fractals of the culture from which they had been ripped so unceremoniously and helped them to mitigate their circumstances both during and after enslavement.

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Indeed, the African-Caribbean body, with its history of trauma, found ways to remember and reinvent its past, surviving the macro-aggressions of capture, the Middle Passage and generational bondage that was designed to break it physically, psychologically and culturally. The St Lucian poet Derek Walcott reflects on this capacity for reinvention in his 1992 Nobel Prize acceptance speech when he says, metaphorically, “Break the vase and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.” The Afro-Atlantic spirit embodied a new sense of strength and resilience, and wining is part of this spirit of selfhood with the body as a site of empowerment.

I am inclined to believe that much of our African-Caribbean wining came from our forebears of the Bantu area of Africa, from which a large number of enslaved Africans came, and which has the traditions of hip rotation embedded in their cosmological constructs. Across the Atlantic, the colonial environment considered wining and Jamette Carnival, in which wining was very present, an affront to respectable,

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. “Carnival in Port of Spain, Trinidad” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1885 - 1895.

Insight: Carnival The Hip as a Weapon: Further Reflections — Sonja Dumas

God-fearing society. Jamette Carnival, the carnival that pulsated in the slums of Port of Spain (an area to which many of the former enslaved Africans were relegated after Emancipation in the 1830s), was not the decorative costume ball event from Europe that might have been imitated in plantation houses. Stick fighting, dancing, contestations for space, inversions of power, and mockery of the ruling class were the order of the Jamette space. It is where we get our tradition of Jouvert from. Imagining a female member of the Jamette band, celebrated calypsonian David Rudder (1992) encapsulates this power of human agency in a few choice words of his calypso, ‘De Long Time Band’: “[she] starts to wine like she/never christen;/She body made from blood/and bacchanal/And dat bottom come to/mash up de Carnival.”

The capacity to deliberately cause offence to oppressive forces using revelry and mockery is one of the fundamental strengths of our Carnival and its elements. The rotating hips, the stick-fighting, the kaiso music (that would eventually become calypso) and the drumming were all artillery against bondage and subjugation. The wining was the body’s way of rising out of its restrictions to declare that it, and it alone, was the leader of its destiny - if only for a brief period.

Indeed, the African-Caribbean body, with its history of trauma, found ways to remember and reinvent its past, surviving the macroaggressions of capture, the Middle Passage and generational bondage that was designed to break it physically, psychologically and culturally.

In the contemporary canon of wining, one can wine by oneself (what anthropologist Daniel Miller (1991) calls “auto-sexual” - in the service of “absolute freedom”). One can also wine with (rather, on) another person, or even in a conga line formation. I have even seen someone wine on a lamppost. Or one person might approach another, unsuspecting “winer” and attempt to “tief a wine” (local parlance for stealing a wine, like stealing a kiss, but with contact with what is clearly a more contested part of the body). In these cases, I consider wining erotic, if we take Audre Lorde’s definition. The erotic, Lorde says, is power.

And it is a very specific power of self-love - one which, though she assigns specifically to women, can also, I believe, be accessed by any gender.

Wining still causes offence. The same defenders of religious principles eschew Carnival (a major site of wining for Trinidad and Tobago people) because of its degrading overtones. Admittedly, one should question when and how the liberatory erotic morphs into the blatantly pornographic (shall we talk about social media?). But if there are people who want to wine to feel a sense of empowerment, it will be their weapon against erasure and whatever oppression confronts them. May the wine be with you.

References Miller, Daniel (1991) “Absolute Freedom in Trinidad.”

Man 26, number 2: 323–41. Available at: https://doi. org/10.2307/2803835 (Accessed: 29 May 2024) Rudder, David (1992) ‘De Long Time Band’. Frenzy.

Lypsoland.

Walcott, David. (1992) “The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory.” Nobel Lecture. Available at https:// www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1992/walcott/ lecture/ (Accessed: 29 May 2024)

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BRAZILIAN CARNIVALS: FESTIVITY TRANSGRESSION AND REVOLUTION THE STARTING POINT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS ARTICLE ARISES FROM THE NEED TO PRESENT NEW PERSPECTIVES AND POINTS OF VIEW ABOUT BRAZILIAN CARNIVAL TO THE WORLD. IT COMPRISES A REFLECTION BASED ON THE HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL TRAJECTORY, DEMONSTRATED THROUGH SYMBOLIC TOOLS, EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE AND IDENTIFICATIONS OF ORIGIN, HOW CARNIVAL BECAME THE MAXIMUM EXPRESSION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN BRAZIL.

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Intrinsically related to the interests of the state and tourism, throughout the twentieth century, a singular, superficial and stereotypical image construction emerged, limiting what carnival traditions in Brazil are to a few and shallow interpretations. Such reductionist imagery lasted for a long time on the international scene, causing such a mistake to be publicised over the years. This article is dedicated to valuing carnival’s capacity for renewal and new meaning in the face of different historical, social and political contexts in Brazil. We distance ourselves from Eurocentric and Christian references, and highlight that Brazilian carnival is irrevocably Afro-indigenous in its essence. The aesthetics that we record today are the heritage of the original peoples, enslaved peoples and Candomblé1 terreiros2 that were even the epicentre of carnival, later becoming the maracatus, the frevos, the caboclinhos, the afoxés, the congadas among many other cultural manifestations, especially as internationally famous samba schools, which, since their emergence in the 1920s, have been political platforms.

Samba schools are the result of Black and marginalised popular organisations, in the context of post-abolition of the slave regime, seeking to rescue the legacy stolen and lost during the process of forced Black Diasporas.

Insight: Carnival Brazilian Carnivals: Festivity, Transgression and Revolution — Cláudia Nwabasili and Roges Doglas

A Brazilian Candomblé priestess. Photographer Lazyllama / Alamy.

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It is a festivity of transgression, where the revolution happens.

It continues to resist the oppression of the “absolute truth” imposed by sexist, racist and hegemonic society. Carnival is a gathering of peripheral knowledge and experiences. It is a perfectly imperfect and unfinished work.

Where are we heading? Which destination is the Brazilian carnival heading to? Even in the face of countless attempts at exacerbated capitalisation, historical erasure, appropriation, whitewashing and domination by interests that do not represent the discourses and needs of the communities that keep this great manifestation alive in its essence, Brazilian carnival continues to be a people’s festivity. It is a festivity of transgression, where the revolution happens. It continues to resist the oppression of the “absolute truth” imposed by sexist, racist and hegemonic society. Carnival is a gathering of peripheral knowledge and experiences. It is a perfectly imperfect and unfinished work.

Year after year we are affirming a decolonial perspective, and the festivities are the stage for great social and political criticism. In 2024, once again Afro-based religions served at the centre of the largest and most recognised popular festival in the country. The orixás, a sign extremely demonised by coloniality, today occupies a place in the samba songs of samba schools. The paths are open and the need for reflection and action on religious intolerance and racism throughout the country is shaped. Brazilian carnival is a crossroads. It is the cross of speeches, knowledge, experiences and powers.

In Brazil, carnival is a proposal for a new understanding of the world, from a decolonial perspective. We claim back our integrity. We are bodymindspirit. May the others never separate us again. Carnival is not a physical terreiro, it is encounter and confrontation, coexistence and metamorphosis. In this period of suspension and “permissiveness” of the Brazilian Afro-indigenous population, use this moment to speak out, to shout for our freedom and open up issues that have never been heard. Far beyond the carnival of masks, the bodies are naked and this is an aesthetic that goes beyond sexuality. Naked bodies so that they can be perceived, crowned and adorned the skin of those who have been historically renegade.

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To conclude, we highlight that in terms of political construction, carnival is a dispute over the symbolic and imaginary. It constitutes an important part of the construction of memory, of encouraging popular organisations and is a fundamental historical document for Brazil. Going in the opposite direction to what is propagated about the Brazilian Black population, we are not dispersed and disjointed, carnival proves our power of organisation, strategy and technologies, our potential to offer art of the highest level, sophisticated intellectual and physical elaborations in harmony and symbiosis. It is impossible not to recognise the wisdom and potential of these communities.

Why do these people’s knowledge continue to be neglected?

Why is it still not recognised? It is urgent to question on a global level the understanding that it is a successful social organisation in its structures. Historically, our way of relating to the world has been disregarded and continues to be less prestigious. We reinforce that carnival in Brazil is not just a joke… The Cia Pé no Mundo Dance Company is a Brazilian Afro-indigenous contemporary dance company, and in our creations, we are precisely discussing and claiming the ancestral knowledge and technologies of the original peoples, Africans and Black Diasporas, in the face of contemporary issues. The world needs to accept this ancestral intelligence and understand that Black people celebrating is a revolutionary act!

Insight: Carnival Brazilian Carnivals: Festivity, Transgression and Revolution — Cláudia Nwabasili and Roges Doglas

Footnotes

Carnival in Sāo Paulo. Photographer Contributor: Erica Catarina Pontes / Alamy

1.

Candomblé is Brazilian religion of worship of the orixás.

2.

Terreiro is a backyard, place where Afro services take place.

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DERBY CARNIVAL: A PERSONAL REFLECTION

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Insight: Carnival Derby Carnival: A Personal Reflection — Nezrine Hudson

INSIGHT MY NAME IS NEZRINE HUDSON. I AM A MEMBER OF THE DERBY WEST INDIAN COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION (DWICA), I JOINED IN 1975 AND I HAVE REMAINED A MEMBER EVER SINCE. I WAS ELECTED ON TO THE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE AT MY FIRST ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. I WENT TO THE MEETING, TO FIND OUT WHAT THE ASSOCIATION WAS ABOUT AND GOT ELECTED ON TO THE COMMITTEE.

Derby Carnival. Photographer Pawlet Brookes.

I have been Assistant Secretary, Assistant Treasurer and Treasurer for over 25 years. While being a Trustee on the Management Committee I also represented the Association on several external organisations such as: • Derby Racial Equality Council – I served as President for two years • NCVA/Community Matter – NEC Member for nine years • School Governor at three schools Later I became employed by DWICA after leaving the Management Committee. I was employed as Development Officer, Activities Co-Ordinator and currently Centre Manager. I manage the community building, bookings and Centre employees.

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In 2022 the return of carnival on the streets and in the park was acknowledged as one of the best years with excellent weather and record crowds wanting to enjoy the return of outdoor events, which was underpinned by having the stage performers and live bands being all female.

– CARNIVAL One of DWICA’s main activity is planning and organising the annual Derby Caribbean Carnival which it has done for nearly 50 years.

It was all started by the Windrush first generation in Derby that formed an organisation called Derby West Indian Association (DWIA). At its AGM in March 1975, Mr Solomon Walters AKA “RICKY” was elected DWIA President. His mission was to create a flagship project, to build a cultural legacy in Derby through artistic expression in a showcase manner by planning what was then known as Derby Festival.

This was based on the success of DWIA involvement in the 1971 Derby Harmony festival, and in August 1974 participation in Derby Council for Community Relations festivals. In September 1974 the Council for Community Relations wrote a letter thanking DWIA for participating in the festival. From this point the DWIA embarked on a fundraising campaign and an event planning process that resulted in DWIA’s first ‘Festival’ of Caribbean culture at Moorways sports stadium in 1975.

The festival grew and in doing so was recognised as a project that could become a flagship for celebrating African Caribbean culture through creative arts and improving community cohesion. As part of its growth the festival later got a rebranding to Derby Caribbean Carnival and by the late 1980s had embarked on a process of organising a big event attended by thousands and in doing so ensuring the expressions of African Caribbean art form could be experienced in the environment known as Derby Caribbean Carnival. In 1989 DWIA then became a registered charity and with this new name, Derby West Indian Community Association (DWICA).

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In the early 1990s DWICA then created a carnival promotion task group which toured all the major carnivals/ outdoor and indoor events in major cities, for example, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leeds, Huddersfield, Preston, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield to promote Derby Caribbean Carnival on an annual basis. This would be done through handing out promotional flyers and engaging in discussions with audiences at these events.

With the success of the carnival, it was necessary to develop a subgroup DWICA – Derby Caribbean Carnival Planning Group (DCCPG) to ensure the event met its obligation as an outdoor event organiser. The carnival is now recognised as an event that has grown from a local event to an event with national recognition.

In addition, DWICA was the lead organisation in the formation and is still an active member of the East Midlands Caribbean Carnival Arts Network (EMCCAN - a national portfolio organisation supported by Arts Council England).

Every year Derby Carnival has a focus commonly known as a ’theme’ to which carnival troupes and carnival costume designers create their interpretation, which is then seen by the public in the street procession. Below are examples of recent themes: 2012 Celebration! Celebration! Celebration!

• The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee • The Olympics coming to London • The fiftieth Anniversary of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago’s independence 2017 Family and Community 2018 Inspirational Journeys (Celebrating the seventieth Windrush Anniversary) 2023 Windrush ‘75 2024 Community

Insight: Carnival Derby Carnival: A Personal Reflection — Nezrine Hudson

– ACHIEVEMENTS

– POST COVID

2016 DWICA carnival troupe development included a rebranding and renaming process and the group is now known as DWICA Cultural Routes Carnival Troupe (CRCT).

2017 CRCT tour visited Manchester, Luton, Leeds, Northampton, Nottingham, Birmingham, Leicester, Ashbourne, Long Eaton and Isle of Wight. Windsor Ride the Night event supporting women in cancer.

CRCT also visited one of the UK’s oldest carnivals in Somerset – we were the Organiser’s guests for the weekend.

2019 Winning EMCCAN Regional Costume Show – king’s costume 2022 Best troupes on the road competition 2023 Winning the East Midlands Caribbean Carnival Arts Network (EMCCAN) Regional Costume Show – queen’s costume.

In 2022 the return of carnival on the streets and in the park was acknowledged as one of the best years with excellent weather and record crowds wanting to enjoy the return of outdoor events, which was underpinned by having the stage performers and live bands being all female.

– THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC The coronavirus pandemic resulted in a national lockdown of outdoor events and in Derby’s case for two years (2020 and 2021). This created the opportunity for social media platforms to host virtual events. For DWICA it became clear that to meet popular demand to broadcast Derby Caribbean Virtual Carnival would be the best option, to present an event that could be viewed by thousands without putting anyone at risk. The first year’s (2020) broadcast was considered a success as it took a reflective view of Derby Caribbean Carnival over the years. This led to a greater demand in the following year (2021), in which the broadcast included an exclusive interview with mother of the internationally recognised Kanneh-Masons orchestra family and renditions of Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman No Cry’ and ‘Redemption Song’. This was followed by a performance from the king of dancehall Beenie Man (an “A” list Dancehall artist from Jamaica which was watched by thousands across the globe).

– REVIEW Over the years the performers on stage have included Morgan Heritage Family, Third World, Etana, Luciano, Freddie McGregor, Frankie Paul, Wayne Wonder, Macka B, Gappy Ranks, Tippa Irie and SW Storm, in addition to UK leading sounds Saxon Studio (London) Luv Injection and Gemini Don (Birmingham) and V Rocket (Nottingham) and international sounds, Big Life Sound (from New Jersey USA) and World Clash sound champions Bass Odyssey (from Jamaica).

The contributions of DWICA volunteers have been, and continues to be, the backbone of the growth and development of Derby Caribbean Carnival over the decades to the present day, which DWICA acknowledges.

Next year (2025) will be another milestone for the organisation reaching DWICA’s seventieth Year (established in 1955) and Carnival’s fiftieth Year (1975); it will be a Celebration! Celebration!

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LAUNC 30

Launchpad

CHPAD Over the last five years, Launchpad has supported the creative practice of 17 Black UK-based artists across artforms.

The resulting works range from short films through to photography essays and everything in between. This issue features the work of three Black women creatives examining the voice and presence of Black women, the history and significance of Black printmakers and the history of Afro hair.

Black Women; Standing Up For All Of Us – Zita Holbourne Afro Hair Portraits and History – Precious Seronga How Much Is Too Much? – Samantha M Thompson

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BLACK WOMEN; STANDING UP FOR ALL OF US

ZITA HOLBOURNE IS A MULTI-AWARDWINNING MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST, WRITER, HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUALITY CAMPAIGNER, COMMUNITY ACTIVIST AND TRADE UNION LEADER. SHE IS THE CO-FOUNDER AND NATIONAL CHAIR OF BARAC UK, JOINT NATIONAL CHAIR OF ARTISTS’ UNION ENGLAND, ELECTED TO THE GENERAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, JOINT NATIONAL CHAIR OF PUBLIC SERVICES INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SUPPORT AND CULTURE WORKERS NETWORK. SHE HAS PLAYED A PROMINENT ROLE IN CAMPAIGNING FOR JUSTICE FOR THE WINDRUSH GENERATION. HER GLOBE SCULPTURE FOR THE WORLD REIMAGINED IS NOW PERMANENTLY LOCATED AT THE BLACK CULTURAL ARCHIVES. SHE IS PART OF UNESCO COALITION OF ARTISTS FOR THE GENERAL HISTORY OF AFRICA AND CURATED THE TUC ROOTS CULTURE IDENTITY ART EXHIBITION 2013 TO 2023.

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In 2023, Holbourne was winner of the Caribbean Global Awards Outstanding Global Arts and Culture Award 2023, listed as one of ten Inspirational Role Models on the Global Diversity List 2023 and shortlisted for the Lifetime Achiever Award in the National Diversity Awards.

In 2024, she is a judge for the Caribbean Global Awards and on the judging panel for the European Network of Cultural Centres.

– PROGRESSION

– I SEE YOU

Launchpad Black Women; Standing Up For All Of Us — Zita Holbourne

– PROGRESSION They’re blocking me from progression Trying to cause my regression They can’t abide That I preside Adept and articulate Thinking how ridiculous She’s a woman, soul parent and Black We can’t let her progress, not someone like that I don’t fit in with their Oxbridge ideal I come from the streets, I’m real I grew up in South London, Peckham Raised by my Caribbean mum I rate myself second to none

You see I’m fired with a flame That will burn out all their shame I may not rise to fame But I can play them at their own game And though they won’t give me a level playing field To disseminate all I yield Just remember I’ve combatted Racism, sexism, fascism and oppression Simultaneously, not in succession And I’m still standing, still achieving And there’s no ways I’m leaving

Not afraid to speak my mind About discrimination I find I know my rights and represent All those people that they resent

They may block my progression in the workplace See this face They may spit at it Shut doors in it Look down at it Disregard it

They call me an ethnic minority But not with my consent I define myself as a majority And that term they use I resent

But still I shine in the face of adversity And I didn’t need to go to university To figure out What they’re about

Only have to look at the world to see we make up the majority

I may be a woman and I may be Black But know something, I’m proud of that Life isn’t a concession And I’ve got a confession I overcame multiple oppression So I sure as hell don’t need permission To achieve promotion or progression And that’s the end of this lesson.

That term is just mental slavery, designed to undermine the likes of you and me So, they’re blocking me from progression Call it a permanent recession Don’t want someone of my gender or race To honour their executive boards with my grace But when I tell them how I feel Give it to them straight, remember I’m real They tell me they find me Aggressive, confrontational and excessive But you know if I was educated at Oxford, Cambridge or even Yale They’d tell me they find me Assertive, sensational and progressive But I’m an ethnic majority My ancestors fought slavery And like a suffragette It’s not over yet Because I’ll rise above them one day soon Despite their secret chants of the ‘N’ word and coon

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– I SEE YOU Navigating a world of sexism and racism Living with the legacies of colonialism Labelled, othered and stereotyped just for existing Resilient and strong - tenaciously resisting I SEE YOU Expected to work twice as hard as your white male counterparts Treated with disdain by those seemingly without hearts For daring to breathe, to dream, to aspire and achieve Told you don’t belong - “Where’re you really from?” - told you should leave Told that women shouldn’t be in leadership positions Let alone a Black woman, having such ambitions Harassment, bullying, scapegoating and gaslighting Hostile environment, blocked and barred, never inviting I SEE YOU For you stand firm on the shoulders of maternal lines Your ancestral herstories are fuelling your bloodlines You might be ignored, discarded or even knocked right down You just get up, dust yourselves off and then fix up your crown I SEE YOU Facing not just misogyny and racist abuse But the impacts of misogynoir and far right views Facing not just glass ceilings but doors barricaded The trauma of oppression and being degraded I SEE YOU Treated as inferior to everyone else Then called names and marginalised, for being yourselves Gatekeepers attempt to block and bar your graceful presence Threatened by the aura of your powerful essence Unable to comprehend how, despite their attempt to block Heads held high, you’re slaying - Black Girls Rock!

Hard work, determination, skills and talent - embolden Because you know you have what it takes - you’re Golden I SEE YOU The mothers holding down two or three jobs just to survive Keeping heads above the water, simply to stay alive To balancing caring with work - facing ostracisation Keep on keeping on - despite the discrimination I SEE YOU Working those dead-end jobs in order to make ends meet Then climbing the ladder, building businesses - no mean feat Demanding your seat at the table that you’ve earned Launching campaigns on issues of which you are concerned 34

I SEE YOU Leading not just businesses, but revolutions too Standing up for all our rights, in everything you do Out there, paving the way for others to assert their rights So that making dreams reality is in their sights I SEE YOU Taking up space - turning up - unapologetically Speaking up for all of us - until all of us are free None of us are free - vocalising what we think and feel Helping our communities to overcome and heal Rejecting their attempts to other and undermine you Ensuring that you shine in everything you do Making sure they understand, that you have agency Doing what you do, assertively but gracefully Centuries of oppression but they couldn’t hold you back Keep on standing, keep on fighting, when you’re under attack Tackling discrimination that’s systemic Taking on the world despite this epidemic I SEE YOU Breaking down closed doors and climbing precarious ladders Refusing to allow our lives to end in tatters No time for gossip, fake rumours and such malarkey In one fell swoop, smashing glass ceilings and patriarchy Here you stand strong, holding down positions of power Always keeping it real, no ivory tower Here you are skilled, talented, blessed, brave, bold, successful Shining through adversity, determined and beautiful I SEE YOU Because I see myself in you Because like you I have lived through, what you have lived through.

So, I will always acknowledge you Always celebrate you Because I SEE YOU It’s time that others do too.

References

I See You (2023) commissioned by Inclusive Companies and Autotrader.

Progression (2017) first published in Striving for Equality Freedom and Justice by Zita Holbourne, Hansib Publications.

Launchpad Black Women; Standing Up For All Of Us — Zita Holbourne

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AFRO HAIR PORTRAITS AND HISTORY PRECIOUS SERONGA IS A TANZANIAN LIVING IN LONDON, WITH A PASSION FOR TRAVEL. HER WORK IS A SENTIMENT TO THE UNDERRATED BEAUTIES FROM THE CONTINENT COMBINED WITH FASHION AND ILLUSTRATION, A UNIVERSAL FORM OF SELF-EXPRESSION. SHE USES ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIGITAL PRINT TO CREATE ART THAT CELEBRATES HER AFRICAN HERITAGE, EDUCATE THE WESTERN COMMUNITY AND EMPOWER AFRICANS IN THE DIASPORA.

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These illustrations focus on portraits of women, with an ethereal mood with consistent use of celestial imagery to convey a magical energy in relation to the amazing history of Black hair styles.

Launchpad Afro Hair Portraits and History — Precious Seronga

Braids are the oldest form of hair art, tracing back to 3500 BC in Egypt.

S

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Enslaved Africans also used cornrows to transfer and create maps to leave plantations and the home of their captors. Black hair was used as a tool for resistance.

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Launchpad Afro Hair Portraits and History — Precious Seronga

In pre-colonial African societies, Black hair was seen as a symbol of a person’s identity. Braids, twists and dreadlocks were used to symbolise a person’s social status and family background.

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The Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s aimed to change the Black community’s understanding of itself and its influence on society. The natural Afro became a popular statement of power, pride and resistance.

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Launchpad Afro Hair Portraits and History — Precious Seronga

Madam C J Walker is recognised as one of the first women in America to become a self-made millionaire. She created a line of specialised hair products for African American hair care.

References Biography.com Editors (2021).

Madam C.J. Walker - Products, Daughter & Hair Products. [online] Biography. Available at: https:// www.biography.com/businessleaders/madam-cj-walker.

Accessed 28 June 2024.

Fox, N. (2021). 6 Things Everyone Should Know about Black Hair History. [online] Odele Beauty.

Available at: https://odelebeauty. com/blogs/the-rinse/black-hairhistory-facts. Accessed 28 June 2024.

Wilson, R. (2022). The History of Black Hair. [online] BLAM UK CIC. Available at: https://blamuk. org/2022/09/15/the-history-ofblack-hair/. Accessed 28 June 2024.

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HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

I AM SAMANTHA M THOMPSON, AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CREATIVE CURRENTLY BASED IN BEDFORDSHIRE IN THE UK. I EXPLORE THEMES OF RACE, IDENTITY AND CULTURE THROUGH POETRY, STORYTELLING, FIGURATIVE DRAWING, AND PRINTMAKING. I AM ULTIMATELY PASSIONATE ABOUT CONTRIBUTING MORE NUANCE AND VARIETY FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF BLACK BRITISH PEOPLE.

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These three lithographs feature Black Caribbean women and the ways in which they take up space. These drawings are “nonfinito” – unfinished. Each lithograph has a different focus drawn in detail which then contrasts the simple line drawings that make up the rest of the figure. This speaks to the many ways that Black women choose to take up space or the apprehension we have when taking up space. How much is too much in terms of art and the self? The finely drawn faces, the flowering headpieces and dynamic drumming illustrates that Black women will continue to take up space regardless of the self-doubt or societal expectations.

Working within a traditional art form, I can introduce people to art that they may not otherwise see themselves in. When Black people enter traditional artforms, many choose to bring something new to the fold rather than to assimilate or keep the status quo. Following printmakers such as Elizabeth Catlett, Delita Martin, and Althea Murphy-Price, I wish to contribute more honest depictions of Black women in art. I choose to express these thoughts through lithography because, as a process, it takes a lot of patience, planning and care. These elements of time are somethings that I wish to give back to my subjects as well as myself.

Launchpad How Much Is Too Much? — Samantha M Thompson

– GRENADIAN DRUMMER, 2024 Lithograph 38 x 50 cm

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– TOWARDS THE FLOWERS, 2024 Lithograph 38 x 51 cm

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Launchpad How Much Is Too Much? — Samantha M Thompson

– SANKOFA SELF PORTRAIT, 2024 Lithograph 38 x 50 cm

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FORGO HISTO 46

Forgotten Histories

OTTEN ORIES The past informs the present and shapes the future, from a maritime disaster that impacted a whole Caribbean nation and yet received less than an inch of column space news in its colonial ‘mother countries’, through to how travel advertisements influenced the fetishisation of Black women.

The underrepresentation of Black women across sectors and in higher education in particular has impacted research and practice. However, before we address this imbalance, we must first find ways to safeguard those forging careers in this sector and ensure their voices are heard.

Black Female Academics’ Health and Psychological Markers: The Impact of Serenity’ — Lisa-Dionne Morris and Ricardo Anderson Black Women: Shaping Success on a White Canvas — Victoria Showunmi Searching for Christena — Tasmin Evans The Eroticised Gaze — Hafsa Hirsi

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BLACK FEMALE ACADEMICS’ HEALTH AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MARKERS: THE IMPACT OF SERENITY INTRODUCTION IN THE DYNAMIC TAPESTRY OF CONTEMPORARY UK RESEARCH CULTURE, WHERE ACADEMIA AND ITS RHYTHMS ECHO THE HEARTBEAT OF SOCIETY AND LEGACIES INTERTWINE WITH ASPIRATIONS, THE CONVERGENCE OF ART, HERITAGE AND HIGHER EDUCATION ILLUMINATES PROFOUND NARRATIVES OF RESILIENCE, INNOVATION AND BLACK FEMALE EMPOWERMENT. THE UNIQUE EXPERIENCES OF UK BLACK FEMALE ACADEMICS, AND HOW THEY NAVIGATE WITHIN THEIR PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL LIVES, ENCOMPASS THE EXCLUSIVE WAYS THEY BALANCE TEACHING, RESEARCH, LEADERSHIP, MENTORSHIP, EDUCATION, SCHOLARSHIP, AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT WHILST ADDRESSING THE INTERSECTIONAL CHALLENGES OF RACE, POSITIONALITY AND GENDER IN ACADEMIA.

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Forgotten Histories Black Female Academics’ Health and Psychological Markers: The Impact of Serenity — Lisa-Dionne Morris and Ricardo Anderson

For many African in Diaspora and dual heritage academics, at the heart of this fusion of resilience lies the deep value of art, education, culture and music, particularly embodied in the pulsating rhythms and soul-stirring melodies of reggae, soca and Caribbean music. A point of interest to the authors, one born in the UK from Carriacouan and Trinidadian parents and the other born and residing in Jamaica, reggae transcends geographical boundaries to become a universal language of unity, protest and celebration. Its rhythmic cadence not only echoes the joys and struggles of its creators but also serves as a potent instrument for social commentary and cultural expression.

The song “Serenity Prayer” by the reggae/dancehall artist Mblem is set to the “contagious riddim,” which is a specific instrumental beat used in multiple songs within the reggae and dancehall genres. In the melody “Serenity Prayer”, the artist and now the authors, draw inspiration from the well-known prayer asking for serenity, courage and wisdom.

The lyrics are adopted and expanded upon in this article, to empower the marginalised, “when you encounter setbacks in academia, the lesson is that these experiences will ultimately make you wiser.”

NoSystem images / Getty

Entwined with the legacy of the “Serenity Prayer” track is the narrative of heritage, especially within the context of the lived experience of Black people. Within academia, Black female scholars stand as pillars of knowledge, wisdom, and cultural preservation. Their research and teachings not only challenge academic norms but also serve as a testament to the resilience and intellectual prowess of racialised, minoritised and marginalised communities. Through their work and research, they reclaim narratives, amplify voices, and forge pathways for future generations to thrive.

In the realm of UK higher education, cultural politics serves as a powerful lens through which to understand Black female academics and Black female professional services staff as they navigate the complexities of our society, demonstrated in UK higher education institutions. Black female advocators such as the Black Female Academics’ Network (BFAN) interrogate power dynamics, challenge dominant narratives, and seek to create inclusive spaces in academia where diverse voices are heard and valued. Within this landscape, the intersections of art, heritage and higher education become fertile ground for critical inquiry, creative expression, and social transformation.

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As we embark on this journey of Black female academic exploration and discovery, we delve deeper into the symbiotic relationship between Black female academics’ health and psychological markers. This article, “Impact of Serenity”, recognises their profound impact on shaping UK higher education identities, challenging our perceptions of Black excellence, and shaping the course of UK history.

– ACADEMIC MILIEU In the labyrinth of academia, where the pursuit of knowledge intersects with institutional dynamics and societal pressures, the well-being of academics, particularly Black female academics, emerges as a critical concern for Black female advocates and networks. Against the backdrop of growing diversity in UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), there is an urgent call to address the unique challenges faced by Black female academics and to foster environments that support their flourishing, Rollock (2019).

The challenges faced by Black female academics are multifaceted and deeply rooted in systemic inequities within higher education institutions. Buchanan (2020) provides a comprehensive examination of these issues in ”Researching While Black (and Female)”, highlighting the dual burdens of racial and gender discrimination.

Buchanan articulates how Black female scholars navigate an academic landscape fraught with biases, microaggressions and institutional barriers that impede their professional advancement and psychological well-being. This article underscores the necessity for systemic change to create a more inclusive and supportive environment for Black females working in academia.

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Heffernan (2021) in “Academic Networks and Career Trajectory”: ‘There’s no career in academia without networks’, explores the pivotal role of academic networks in shaping career paths. Heffernan argues that access to robust professional networks is crucial for career advancement in academia. However, Black female academics often find themselves excluded from academic networks, further exacerbating their marginalisation. Our article calls for intentional efforts to integrate Black females into influential academic circles, thereby enhancing their visibility and opportunities for collaboration.

Osho (2023) offers practical solutions in “Backing Black Scholars: Here’s How Universities Can Do Better,” published by THE. Osho emphasises the importance of institutional commitment to supporting Black scholars through mentorship programmes, targeted recruitment efforts, and the establishment of inclusive policies. The article suggests that universities must adopt a proactive stance in dismantling systemic barriers and fostering an environment where Black academics can thrive.

The “100 Black Women Professors NOW Impact Report”

by Sanyal et al. (2024) provides empirical evidence of the positive outcomes resulting from targeted interventions aimed at promoting Black females in academia. The report’s co-author, Professor Morris, and one of the authors of this paper, a Black female STEM professor at the University of Leeds, and CEO of the Black Female Academics’ Network, stated that the report ‘showcases success stories and the impact of initiatives designed to elevate Black females to professorial positions’. These findings demonstrate the efficacy of focused efforts and serve as a model for institutions seeking to enhance diversity and inclusion within their academic ranks.

Forgotten Histories Black Female Academics’ Health and Psychological Markers: The Impact of Serenity — Lisa-Dionne Morris and Ricardo Anderson

For many African in Diaspora and dual heritage academics, at the heart of this fusion of resilience lies the deep value of art, education, culture and music, particularly embodied in the pulsating rhythms and soul-stirring melodies of reggae, soca and Caribbean music.

Wright et al. (2007) in “Out of Place: Black Women Academics in British Universities” delve into the historical and cultural contexts that contribute to the marginalisation of Black female scholars in the UK. Their research reveals persistent challenges such as tokenism, cultural isolation, and the lack of institutional support. The authors of this article call for a re-evaluation of university policies and practices to better support Black females and recognise their contributions to the academic community.

Together, these studies provide a robust framework for understanding the systemic challenges faced by Black female academics and underscore the need for comprehensive strategies to promote equity and inclusivity within higher education. By addressing these issues through Black academic networks and Black advocacy for policy reform, enhanced support systems, and intentional inclusivity efforts, the UK academic community can and might move toward a more just and equitable environment for all scholars.

The journey begins with a reflection on the landscape of higher education, where diversity and inclusion have become focal points in discussions surrounding equity and justice.

The increasing representation of Black female academics in academia brings to light the intersectionality of their experiences, encompassing race, gender and professional identity. Conversely, beneath the surface of progress lies a complex tapestry of challenges, as highlighted by recent research and publications.

Insights into the current landscape for Black females working in academia discuss the challenges they face, their contributions to academia, and recommendations for improving representation and support. This article delves into the experiences of Black female academics in British universities, examining issues of belonging, representation and discrimination, and the Impact of Serenity. Buchanan (2020) in “Researching While Black (and Female)” published in Women and Therapy discussed the unique challenges faced by Black female researchers, including biases, stereotypes and the impact on mental health. Heffernan (2021) explores the importance of networking in academic career progression, highlighting its role in opportunities and advancement. Perry et al.

(2023) in “Alliances, Allyship, and Activism”: ‘The value of international partnerships for co-producing, discuss the significance of international collaborations in addressing injustices, emphasising the role of alliances and activism.’

The Impact of Serenity aims to delve into the necessity, effects, and influence of a state of tranquillity, calmness, or peacefulness, commonly known as “serenity of thought”, provided to Black females by other Black females working in academia and the Black academic networks who advocate for their needs. This paper’s exploration seeks to better understand the consequences and outcomes arising from the experience of Black females in a non-serene workforce and work environment.

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As we embark on this journey of Black female academic exploration and discovery, we delve deeper into the symbiotic relationship between Black female academics’ health and psychological markers.

Morris and Anderson, in their research, employ data science and design science to investigate how a peaceful and serene mindset can positively impact the mental health, stress levels, and overall emotional well-being of Black female academics. Their exploration includes examining how a calm and focused state of mind might enhance productivity and creativity in both the professional and daily activities of Black female scholars. Additionally, they consider the potential positive effects of serenity on physical health and discuss how maintaining a sense of tranquillity can improve relationships, fostering better communication and understanding.

Through the lenses of data science and design science, Morris and Anderson navigate a complex terrain of researching mental health, stress management, and emotional resilience among UK Black female academics.

Their work aims to quantify and qualify the impact of serenity on the holistic well-being of these scholars. By employing innovative methodologies, they seek to elucidate how cultivating a peaceful and serene mindset can mitigate stress, enhance emotional stability, and create an environment conducive to academic success.

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Drawing upon Heffernan’s (2021) insights on academic networks and career trajectory, this article and accompanying lecture examine how a tranquil state of mind might catalyse collaboration, creativity and professional growth within academic communities. Additionally, Perry et al.’s (2023) exploration of alliances and activism underscores the transformative potential of solidarity and support networks in fostering inclusive and equitable academic environments.

As the lecture unfolds, it becomes evident that the pursuit of serenity is not merely a personal endeavour but a collective responsibility. Morris and Anderson underscore the importance of Black academics’ external support, Black allyship and Black advocacy in nurturing environments where Black female academics can thrive.

By fostering a culture of empathy, understanding and inclusivity, Black academic networks can pave the way for a future where serenity is not a luxury but a fundamental right for all scholars.

The Impact of Serenity serves as a poignant reminder of the resilience, strength and wisdom inherent within Black female scholars. Through rigorous inquiry, compassionate dialogue and collective action, we can aspire to create academic spaces where serenity flourishes, empowering Black female academics to soar to new heights of excellence and fulfilment.

Forgotten Histories Black Female Academics’ Health and Psychological Markers: The Impact of Serenity — Lisa-Dionne Morris and Ricardo Anderson

Moreover, there has been a significant increase in the representation of female researchers from Africa and the African Diaspora, making it crucial for UK HEIs to gain a better understanding of the health and psychological wellbeing of Black female academics. This understanding is vital for the development of relevant support systems and policies that address the identification and intervention strategies for health and well-being. Notably, two particularly challenging stages of employment for Black female academics are the junior academic and postgraduate research (PGR) levels, Mattocks and Briscoe-Palmer (2016). However, there is limited knowledge and evidence regarding the experiences of Black female academics at these stages and beyond, hindering the provision of effective career support and interventions. Overall, the wider research study aims to fill the existing knowledge gaps and provide insights into the health and psychological state of Black female academics and Black professional services staff, enabling UK HEIs and Black academic networks to develop targeted interventions and support mechanisms that cater to their specific needs.

This is the premise of a keynote talk Morris gave on ‘Amplifying Impact in Inclusive Research Culture’ in July 2023. The primary research question guiding the research study is as follows:

What are the patterns of emotions, psychological markers, and health indicators that are relevant for understanding and improving the health and psychological well-being of Black female academics in the UK and internationally?

To achieve the project objectives, the research project adopted the methodological approach outlined in Anderson’s paper titled “A methodology for pre-processing structured big data in the behavioural sciences” Brown and Anderson (2022), which serves as a guide for data pre-processing.

By applying an equity, diversity and inclusion lens to the research process, this project aims to shed light on the health and psychological well-being of Black female academics, ultimately contributing to the development of more effective support systems and interventions within the Black female academic community.

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For Black female academics, navigating the corridors of academia can often feel like traversing a labyrinth fraught with obstacles and barriers.

– METHOD: SENTIMENT ANALYSIS USING NRC LEXICON Across the UK, the accounts of several participants on Twitter (now X) were accessed to retrieve historical posts since these accounts were first set up. These included known figures in the Black academic community and advocacy/support institutions that were created to serve the Black academic network of women. Over ten thousand unique posts were retrieved for these accounts for analysis.

Applying sentiment analysis using the NRC lexicon reveals that the dominant sentiment among the accounts analysed is positive. This suggests that the owners of these Black accounts predominantly share and inspire positive conversations within their communities. This positivity could signify a proactive approach to fostering a supportive and uplifting environment, particularly within the context of promoting the well-being of Black female academics.

Moreover, the analysis indicates that the emotions most dominant in these conversations are trust and anticipation.

This finding suggests that there is a prevailing sense of trust among Black community members, possibly stemming from a shared commitment to supporting one another.

Additionally, the anticipation observed maybe linked to Black activism efforts aimed at mobilising their target audience to work collectively towards achievable goals.

This aligns with the overarching theme of “the serenity of thought: nurturing Black female academics’ well-being”, as it underscores the importance of fostering a sense of trust and anticipation among Black female academics to promote their well-being. In essence, the positive sentiment and dominant emotions of trust and anticipation observed in these conversations reflect a concerted effort toward creating a supportive and empowering community environment. This, in turn, contributes to the overarching goal of nurturing the well-being of Black female academics by fostering a sense of collective empowerment and solidarity.

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Overall, the sentiment analysis using the NRC lexicon provides insight into the emotional tone of the text and helps identify the predominant emotions expressed within the analysed content. In conducting sentiment analysis on the topic of “the serenity of thought: nurturing Black female academics’ well-being”, several key insights emerge from the text: 1. Positive sentiment: the predominant sentiment expressed in the discussion of this topic is positive.

This positivity suggests an acknowledgment of the importance of nurturing the well-being of Black females within academia.

2. Trust and anticipation: the analysis also reveal that the emotions most dominant in the discourse are trust and anticipation. This indicates a sense of confidence and optimism in the potential for positive change and improvement in the well-being of Black female academics.

3. Collective action and activism: the presence of anticipation suggests a focus on collective action and activism aimed at achieving common goals related to promoting the well-being of Black female academics.

There is an anticipation of positive outcomes resulting from these efforts.

4. Recognition of challenges: while the sentiment is largely positive, there is also an acknowledgment of the challenges and barriers faced by Black female academics within academia. This recognition underscores the importance of addressing these challenges to improve their well-being.

5. Call to action: overall, the sentiment analysis highlights a call to action to address the systemic inequalities and barriers faced by Black female academics. There is a sense of urgency and determination to promote equity, diversity and inclusion within academia and support the well-being of all Black scholars, particularly Black female academics.

Forgotten Histories Black Female Academics’ Health and Psychological Markers: The Impact of Serenity — Lisa-Dionne Morris and Ricardo Anderson

Consequently, sentiment analysis reveals a positive and hopeful outlook on the topic of nurturing the well-being of Black female academics. While challenges exist, there is a collective sense of trust and anticipation in the potential for positive change and a commitment to taking action to improve the well-being of Black females within academia.

The findings underscore the imperative of addressing the intersecting factors that contribute to poor health outcomes and diminished well-being among Black female academics, both in the UK and globally. It is within this context that the notion of “serenity of thought” emerges as a beacon of hope, offering a pathway towards holistic well-being and resilience. Their discourse extends beyond the individual to explore the broader implications of serenity on interpersonal dynamics and institutional research culture. Although the study didn’t directly measure or explore the impact of a serene mindset, it can be inferred that the recognition of its importance is embedded in their approach. This recognition likely contributes to the generally positive sentiments and expressions of trust found in the experience and accounts they analysed. The positive messages and emotions they aim to foster are intended to help the target audience, Black female academics, tap into these beneficial states and spread positivity within their communities.

Research indicates a disproportionate drop-off in progression to PhD studies among Black female undergraduates, Williams et al. (2019), alongside challenges in accessing research council funding, Williams et al. (2019). Negative racial experiences and a lack of community and mentor support contribute to feelings of isolation and exclusion among Black female academics, Stockard et al. (2021).

Amidst these challenges, Black advocate initiatives aimed at fostering a supportive and inclusive academic environment are gaining traction. By establishing Black peer-to-peer networks and comprehensive capability development frameworks, Black female academic networks like the Black Female Academics’ Network (BFAN) are paving the way for positive change and empowerment within academia.

Central to the discourse on well-being is the concept of “serenity of thought”, which encompasses not only a sense of inner peace but also external factors that contribute to a supportive and nurturing environment. Drawing inspiration from Braun and Clarke (2006), Dorjee’s (2016) work on contemplative science and existential awareness, the importance of self-regulatory capacity and metacognitive processes in fostering well-being, becomes apparent. Likewise, Lee et al. (2007) emphasise the role of Black curriculum development in providing a foundation for academic success, particularly for underrepresented minorities in STEM fields.

In the pursuit of well-being, the role of Black mentorship and Black support networks cannot be overstated. Black female professors play a pivotal role in guiding the next generation of academics, offering invaluable insights and support to navigate the complexities of academia, Stockard et al. (2021) and Morris et al. (2024).

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The journey of a Black female academic is a multifaceted one, marked by triumphs and tribulations, victories and setbacks. It is a journey that requires courage, resilience and unwavering determination.

As we navigate the complexities of academia and strive toward a more equitable and inclusive future, the concept of “serenity of thought” serves as a guiding principle. It reminds us of the importance of fostering environments that nurture not only intellectual growth but also holistic wellbeing. The concept of “serenity of thought” encapsulates more than just a state of tranquillity or calmness; it embodies a holistic approach to nurturing the well-being of Black female academics within the intricate tapestry of academia. At its core, “serenity of thought” signifies a state of inner peace and equilibrium that arises from a confluence of Black-led supportive networks, inclusive environments and empowering initiatives. It acknowledges the multifaceted challenges faced by Black female academics and underscores the importance of fostering Blackcentric environments that promote their flourishing, both professionally and personally.

For Black female academics, navigating the corridors of academia can often feel like traversing a labyrinth fraught with obstacles and barriers. From systemic inequities and institutional biases to societal expectations and cultural pressures, the journey toward academic success can be riddled with complexities. In such a landscape, “serenity of thought” serves as a beacon of hope—a guiding principle that advocates for the creation of supportive ecosystems where Black female academics can thrive.

At its essence, nurturing “serenity of thought” involves addressing the intersecting factors that contribute to the well-being of Black female academics. This encompasses not only tangible resources and support systems but also intangible elements such as a sense of belonging, empowerment and agency. It acknowledges the importance of mentorship, peer support and community building in fostering resilience and fostering a sense of community and belonging among Black female academics.

Furthermore, “serenity of thought” underscores the significance of systemic change and institutional reform in creating inclusive and equitable academic environments. It calls for proactive measures to dismantle structural barriers and biases that hinder the advancement and well-being of Black female academics. This may involve implementing policies and initiatives aimed at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as fostering a culture of belonging and respect within academia. Nurturing “the serenity of thought” requires a commitment to self-care and selfcompassion among Black female academics themselves. It encourages them to prioritise their well-being and to seek out resources and support systems that promote their mental, emotional and physical health. This may involve cultivating mindfulness practices, seeking out mentorship and support networks, and advocating for their own needs and interests within academic spaces.

Ultimately, “the serenity of thought” serves as a rallying cry for collective action and solidarity in the pursuit of wellbeing for Black female academics. It calls upon institutions, policymakers and individuals alike to recognise the unique challenges faced by Black female academics and to work collaboratively towards creating environments that support their flourishing. By embracing the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion, and by prioritising the holistic wellbeing of all academics, we can cultivate a more resilient, vibrant and inclusive academic community for generations to come.

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Forgotten Histories Black Female Academics’ Health and Psychological Markers: The Impact of Serenity — Lisa-Dionne Morris and Ricardo Anderson

The key argument of “The Serenity of Thought: Nurturing Black Female Academics’ Well-being” is that fostering environments conducive to the well-being of Black female academics is essential for their success and fulfilment within academia. “The Serenity of Thought” provides a foundation to transition smoothly into discussing the non-traditional support systems, such as online supporting agents and institutions, which were central to our analysis using the NRC lexicon.

In traditional academic settings, support for Black female academics often includes poorly supported and financed mentoring programmes, limited diversity and inclusion initiatives, and redundant policies aimed at fostering a supportive environment. These measures are crucial for promoting mental health, reducing stress, and enhancing the overall emotional well-being of Black female scholars.

Transitioning to non-traditional support systems, we explore the role of online supporting agents and institutions.

Our analysis using the NRC lexicon reveals that these digital platforms can significantly contribute to the emotional resilience and serenity of Black female academics. Online communities provide a space for sharing experiences, offering support, and fostering a sense of belonging, which are essential for mental well-being.

By integrating both traditional and non-traditional support mechanisms, the authors’ research interests underscore the comprehensive approach needed to address the unique challenges faced by Black female academics. The positive sentiments and expressions of trust identified in our analysis highlight the potential of these non-traditional platforms to complement existing support structures. This dual approach not only enhances individual well-being but also promotes a more inclusive and supportive academic environment.

Finally acknowledging the traditional academic landscape’s contributions and the emerging significance of nontraditional support systems provides a holistic view of how a serene and peaceful mindset can be cultivated. This, in turn, supports the overall theme of our paper, emphasising the importance of a multifaceted strategy to improve the well-being and success of Black female academics.

The concept of “The Serenity of Thought” emphasises the importance of creating supportive Black-centric ecosystems that promote inner peace, resilience and empowerment among Black female academics. It contends that by addressing systemic inequities, dismantling barriers to success, and fostering inclusive environments, Black advocates and networks can bypass institutions and cultivate a culture of belonging and support that enables Black female academics to thrive.

Furthermore, the argument asserts that nurturing “The Serenity of Thought” requires a multifaceted approach that encompasses tangible resources, supportive networks and systemic change. This includes initiatives such as Black mentorship programmes, Black peer support networks, diversity and inclusion policies, and advocacy for structural reform within academia.

Overall, the key argument is that prioritising the well-being of Black female academics is not only a moral imperative but also essential for the advancement and sustainability of academia as a whole. By embracing the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion, and by actively working to create environments that support the flourishing of all academics, institutions can foster a more vibrant, resilient and inclusive academic community.

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Ultimately, I urge each of you to join and stand in solidarity with Black female academics.

“The Serenity of Thought: Nurturing Black Female Academics’ Well-being” advocates for recognising and addressing the unique challenges faced by Black female academics to promote their well-being and success within academia. By fostering greater awareness, understanding and action, institutions and individuals can work towards creating a more inclusive and supportive academic environment for all scholars.

In our travel through academia, we often encounter challenges and obstacles that test our resilience and perseverance. For Black female academics, these challenges can be particularly daunting, as they navigate intersecting identities and systemic barriers within academic spaces.

The journey of a Black female academic is a multifaceted one, marked by triumphs and tribulations, victories and setbacks. It is a journey that requires courage, resilience and unwavering determination. Yet, amidst the struggles and hardships, there lies a profound prospect – an opportunity to cultivate a sense of serenity, peace and well-being that transcends the chaos and tumult of academic life.

But what exactly is serenity? Serenity is more than just a state of calmness or tranquillity; it is a profound sense of inner peace, contentment and acceptance. It is the ability to find solace amid chaos, navigate uncertainty with grace and poise, and embrace one’s true self with confidence and authenticity.

In the context of academia, nurturing the well-being of Black female academics is not merely a matter of personal preference or individual choice; it is a moral imperative, a call to action, and a fundamental human right. It is a recognition of the inherent dignity and worth of every scholar, regardless of race, gender or background. It is a commitment to creating inclusive and equitable academic environments where all individuals can thrive and flourish.

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– WHY IS THIS TOPIC SO IMPORTANT? Why should we, as scholars and academics, care about the well-being of Black female academics?

The answer lies in our collective humanity, our shared responsibility to uphold justice, equity and dignity for all members of our academic community. When we nurture the well-being of Black female academics, we not only honour their contributions to scholarship and research but also empower them to reach their full potential and make meaningful contributions to society. We create spaces where their voices are heard, their perspectives are valued, and their experiences are respected. Moreover, by prioritising the well-being of Black female academics, we challenge the status quo, disrupt systemic inequalities, and pave the way for a more just, equitable and inclusive academic landscape. We affirm our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and reaffirm our belief in the transformative power of education to change lives and shape the future.

Ultimately, I urge each of you to join and stand in solidarity with Black female academics. Let us encourage the pursuit of “Serenity of Thought,” drawing inspiration from the lyrics of Mblem’s song “Serenity Prayer”: “To accept the things you can’t change in academia, challenge and change the things that you can”. Advocating for their well-being and “serenity of thought,” and creating Black academic supportive spaces where they can thrive and flourish, for Black females is essential. Serenity in this context draws inspiration from courage and wisdom to adapt and expand one’s mind when faced with the same problem. Together, we can cultivate a culture of serenity, compassion and empowerment within academia and beyond.

Enhanced view of the Tomb of Myrtilla. Courtesy of Oxhill Village Council.

Forgotten Histories Black Female Academics’ Health and Psychological Markers: The Impact of Serenity — Lisa-Dionne Morris and Ricardo Anderson

References Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3:77-101.

Sanyal, D., Lawal, T., Jones, C., MacKinlay, A. and Morris, L.D., (2024) 100 Black Women Professors NOW Impact Report. https://www.whenequality.org/100

Brown, P.A. and Anderson, R.A., 2022. A methodology for pre-processing structured big data in the behavioural sciences. Behaviour Research Methods, pp.1-21.

Stockard, J., Rohlfing, C.M. and Richmond, G.L., 2021. Equity for women and underrepresented minorities in STEM: Graduate experiences and career plans in chemistry. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(4), p.e2020508118.

Buchanan, NiCole T. (2020). “Researching While Black (and Female).” Women & Therapy, 43(1-2), 91111. DOI: 10.1080/02703149.2019.1684681 Dorjee, D., 2017. Neuroscience and psychology of meditation in everyday life: searching for the essence of mind. Routledge.

Williams, P., Bath, S., Arday, J. and Lewis, C., 2019.

The broken pipeline: Barriers to black PhD students accessing research council funding. Leading Routes.

Wright, C., Thompson, S., & Channer, Y. (2007).

Out of Place: Black women academics in British universities. Women’s History Review, 16(2), 145-162.

Heffernan, T. (2021). Academic networks and career trajectory: ‘There’s no career in academia without networks.’ Higher Education Research & Development, 40(5), 981-994.

Lee, Y.W., Pierce, E., Talburt, J. Wang, R.Y. & Zhu, H. 2007. A curriculum for a master of science in information quality. Journal of Information Systems Education. 18(2).

Mattocks, K., & Briscoe-Palmer, S. (2016). Diversity, Inclusion, and Doctoral Study: Challenges Facing Minority PhD Students in the United Kingdom.

European Political Science, 15, 476–492.

Morris, L.D., Williams, S., and Benitez-Alfonso, Y. (2024) 100 Black Women Professors NOW Impact Report. https://www.whenequality.org/100 Osho, Y. (9 May 2023) Backing Black scholars: Here’s how universities can do better. THE, IHE. https:// www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/backingblack-scholars-heres-howuniversities-can-do-better Perry, B., Castán Broto, V., Patel, Z., & Sitas, R. (2023). Alliances, allyship and activism: The value of international partnerships for co-producing just cities. Planning Theory, 0(0).

Rollock, N. (2019). The Health and Wellbeing of Black Academics. 100 Black Women Professors Now. Retrieved from https://www.whenequality.org/100

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BLACK WOMEN: SHAPING SUCCESS ON A WHITE CANVAS CHILDHOOD AND YOUNG ADULT EXPERIENCES

BLACK WOMEN DO NOT BENEFIT FROM THE PERCEIVED ATTRACTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF FEMININITY IN BRITISH CULTURE. THEY ARE IDENTIFIED AS ‘THE OTHER’ AND SEEN TO LACK THE INHERENT DESIRABLE ASPECTS OF FEMININITY ASSOCIATED WITH WHITE WOMEN AND GIRLS.

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Forgotten Histories Black Women: Shaping Success on a White Canvas — Victoria Showunmi

Image Source

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Unfair practices include disregarding employment rights leading to inequitable treatment in the workplace, such as casualised contracts and lower pay.

The experience of Black women is subsumed into that of Black males. They are overlooked in conversations about racism and sexism (Coles and Pasek 2020). They are not associated with femininity and are therefore excluded from discussions of feminism.

Black girls and Black young women in an educational environment are living with two phenomena which are central to our understanding of their experience. One is racial profiling, whereby girls are ascribed specific stereotypical characteristics such as behaviours which are uncooperative, aggressive and insensitive. Another issue is adultification, a phenomenon whereby Black girls are assumed to be socially, emotionally and physically more mature than their years. This issue originates in the frequently stressful family and educational contexts of Black girls. They are often burdened by premature demands beyond the capabilities of children of their age in school combined with caring responsibilities at home. They are seldom seen as ‘pretty little things’.

When Black girls succeed in navigating the challenges they face, they do this at a cost to their wellbeing. They suffer racial trauma which they do not acknowledge because it is so painful. They do not have the vocabulary to describe what they have been through. They are unaware of the toll these childhood pressures are taking until they mature and begin to recognise what is happening when they are women. Their negative experiences are embedded in their identity and impact on their wellbeing in the workplace.

Smith, Yosso and Solórzano (2006) draw attention to racial battle fatigue and the emotional, psychological and physical impact of racial micro-aggressions on people of Colour.

(Showunmi and Tomlin 2022, p.123) The lived experience of Black women is shaped by widespread systemic racism, some reported, some unreported. During the past year alone, we have seen multiple incidents of discrimination against Black women.

Unfair practices include disregarding employment rights leading to inequitable treatment in the workplace, such as casualised contracts and lower pay. The energy, ideas and drive embodied in Black women are appreciated but their physical presence is not welcomed.

Stereotyping, which Black women have experienced at school, persists. In the workplace it can take the form of labelling Black colleagues as incompetent, ineffectual, and generally inferior. Intangible, hidden feelings, a sense of opposition which creates a cumulative wall of obstacles, hinder progression. White women have to break a glass ceiling to progress; Black women must pound their way through a concrete ceiling of preconceived race-related beliefs concerning their abilities.

• How can Black women overcome the odds which are stacked against them after years of difficult experiences?

• How can they not only survive but also triumph in the workplace?

They need to battle sophisticated racism: “flip the script and change the narrative”.

Sophisticated racism rests on the premise that only traditionally White social cues, language, and ways of acting in public, the workplace, and school spaces are acceptable. Black people are expected to follow White patterns of behaviour which may not harmonise with their cultural norms.

(Showunmi and Tomlin 2022, p.133)

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Forgotten Histories Black Women: Shaping Success on a White Canvas — Victoria Showunmi

My widespread research in this area has enabled me to create evidence-based recommendations to enable Black women to overcome white privilege and achieve career progression. The goal of the strategies offered is to change the outcome of racist behaviour directed against Black women and girls. The strategies are questioning, caring, behaving, advocating and documenting. Each of these, first detailed in Showunmi and Tomlin (2022), are outlined below.

1

Questioning – Asking direct questions requires focused responses that can expose racist actions. To flip the script and change the narrative, it is important to reflect on and use effective questions. One example of a useful question is “Can you repeat what you just said? Slowly.”

References Showunmi, V., and Tomlin, C. (2022). Understanding and managing sophisticated and everyday racism: Implications for education and work. Rowman and Littlefield.

Smith, W., Yosso, T., and Solorzano, D. (2006) Challenging Racial Battle Fatigue on Historically White Campuses: A Critical Race Examination of Race-Related Stress. In C. Stanley (ed.) Faculty of Color: Teaching in Predominantly White Colleges and Universities. Bolton, Massachusetts: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., pp.29-327.

Coles, S.M. and Pasek, J. (2020) Intersectional Invisibility Revisited: How Group Prototypes Lead to the Erasure and Exclusion of Black Women.

Translational Issues in Psychological Science.

2 Caring – Self-care is essential to navigating sophisticated and everyday racism. Coaching and mentoring can help Black women to navigate the turbulent seas of the workplace.

3 Behaving – Sometimes taking the time to think, and rising above racism, responding with dignity can be the best strategy.

4 Advocating – This is imperative to support empowered behaviour and support the community of Black women.

5 Documenting – This is a potent weapon. Documenting every day and sophisticated racism is an invaluable way of countering discrimination.

More research must be conducted into the experiences of Black women and girls in school and the workplace, with the recognition that racial trauma and profiling is real and is disguised through sophisticated and everyday racism.

Whiteness is the secret battle in which Black women and girls have to prevail.

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SEARCHING FOR CHRISTENA FOR MOST OF MY LIFE, THE CHRISTENA FERRY DISASTER HAS BEEN UNKNOWN TO ME. WHEN I BEGAN MY RESEARCH, I REALISED THAT MY CONNECTION TO THE DISASTER WAS CLOSER TO HOME THAN I COULD HAVE BELIEVED. IN THE PAGES OF A TEXTBOOK, UNDER A LIST OF 91 SURVIVORS, WAS MY GRANDFATHER’S SURNAME; MY FAMILY, LIKE MANY OTHERS, HAD SUDDENLY BECOME PART OF HISTORY.

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Forgotten Histories Searching for Christena — Tasmin Evans

The Saunders family (c. 1970s). Courtesy of Eunice Storrod.

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By the time it left Basseterre, the Christena was carrying around 170 more people than its intended capacity of 155.

On Emancipation Day, Saturday 1 August 1970, in the Narrows channel connecting St Kitts with Nevis, 233 people lost their lives. There are family names I recognise among the lists: Phipps, Warner, Morton and Weekes1. Everyone lost someone. This is our shared story, our moment in time that lies hidden like a ghost in our history. By talking to each other, to our elders and our families, we can hope to rediscover it. I spoke to Mrs Elvy Morton, who had family and friends on both sides of the disaster. Sat in her front room, the walls lined with framed photos of her family, she recalled annual visits to Nevis where she would pay her respects at the monument overlooking the Narrows. Like her, no one could believe what had happened, or that it had happened so quickly. In fifteen minutes, the Christena had turned over in the current and sunk below the waves.

In fifteen minutes, children lost their parents, parents lost their children.

Unlike other maritime disasters like the Titanic and the Titan submersible, the Christena brings with it an it-couldhave-easily-been-me feeling. While third-class tickets on the 1912 voyage would now cost upwards of £1,000 today, the Christena was an everyday ferry used specifically for passage between Basseterre and Charlestown. My Aunty Marjorie could recall the story of my cousin, Earl Storrod, whose name I had found in the survivor lists. Living in Hickman’s village in south-east Nevis, he set off for home from St Kitts on the evening of Saturday 1 August. Many in Nevis visited the neighbouring island to sell goods, see relatives or go shopping, returning with Kittitians for Emancipation Day celebrations on Monday 3 August. Many who got on the boat may have had a long selling day, lucky to catch the last trip. Others may have spent the day partying, keeping the festivities up until the very last minute before heading home.

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First-class fare was $1 and second-class was 50 cents2 .

By the time it left Basseterre, the Christena was carrying around 170 more people than its intended capacity of 155. It sank over a mile away from Nags Head, the closest spot of land that survivors could reach. To swim ashore in the midst of chaos - of confusion and death - was no small feat. Earl Storrod had been among a small group, perhaps no more than a few dozen people, who managed to swim the entire way and stay on the rocks until help arrived. The terror of that late afternoon may have stuck with him for the rest of his life, and many in my family had not heard his story until my conversation with Marjorie. Like many survivors, he did not bring his testimony forward when investigations began and, if not for a few letters sent to Birmingham, Marjorie and her husband, Earl’s father, might never have known he was on the fated ferry.

These histories matter to the Caribbean and its Diaspora.

The Christena brought communities now scattered overseas together in grief. From St Kitts and Nevis to Leeds, London and Birmingham, they mourned. Sylvan Warner recalls being ten-years-old on the day of the disaster, where families congregated in his father’s home. Four-thousand miles away from the islands, phone calls flew out in search of some semblance of information on who had been lost. Few words can describe what the emotional impact those fifteen minutes had and will continue to have on our families.

While British newspapers like the Evening Standard dedicated no more than a few paragraphs3, they tried desperately to find out what happened.

Forgotten Histories Searching for Christena — Tasmin Evans

Mrs Elvy Morton.

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African Caribbean histories have been passed down orally, so how do we tell the stories that are often too traumatic to recall? So few survivors came forward with their accounts that the truth has become obscured.

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Selwyn Allington Warner (c.1970s). Courtesy of Sylvan Warner.

Forgotten Histories Searching for Christena — Tasmin Evans

We owe it to the 233 lives lost on the Christena to capture our own history. Many British archival records of 1 August talk about the governmental response between St Kitts and Britain - still the mother country for another 13 years.

Correspondence discusses the urgent need to replace the Christena to keep the ferry service running, but very little is said about the human loss. Archives may only tell half the story, but what exists of the history of the Christena shows two governments intent on returning to business as usual, and the true grief has not been truly documented.

African Caribbean histories have been passed down orally, so how do we tell the stories that are often too traumatic to recall? So few survivors came forward with their accounts that the truth has become obscured. Even the true number of casualties was never agreed upon because of the sheer number of people missing after the sinking. How do we come together to remember something that many would rather leave buried? Marjorie, Sylvan and Mrs Morton all had the same answer: we simply must try our best to remember it. Whether by coming together in a formal memorial ceremony, or embedding the history of Christena into British carnivals, we must do our best to keep its memory alive.

Bibliography 1.

Browne, W. T. (2013) The Christena Disaster Forty-Two Years Later - Looking Backward, Looking Forward: A Caribbean Story about National Tragedy, the Burden of Colonialism, and the Challenge of Change. Bloomington: iUniverse

2.

The Labour Spokesman (1970) Quoted in Browne, W. T. (2013) The Christena Disaster Forty-Two Years. P.124

3.

Evening Standard (1970) ‘Capsized ferry ‘overladen’’. 3 August.

Mrs Morton said that the Christena disaster is relevant to everybody, but not known by many. Not only do we need to fight for visibility in British history, museums and archives, we need to make sure these conversations are being held in our own homes. Over the dinner table, in the front room, in the weekly phone calls, we need to pass our memories down to the younger generations for fear that, if we do not, the stories of the Christena will disappear.

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THE EROTICISED GAZE: IMPERIAL AIRWAYS FLY TO AFRICA THE TERM EROTICISATION DENOTES THE PROCESS OF MAKING SOMEONE APPEAR IN A SEXUAL MANNER. THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD MARKED THE BEGINNING OF THE FETISHISATION OF BLACK WOMEN. UPON EUROPEAN ARRIVAL, EXPLORERS SET OUT TO DISCOVER THE NEW WORLD WITH THE INTENTION OF PLUNDERING THE UNCHARTED TERRITORY. THIS PERPETUATED THE IDEA THAT AFRICA WAS SOMEWHERE THAT EUROPEANS WERE COMPELLED TO EXPLORE, PILLAGE, TO SEIZE LAND AND EXPLOIT THE NATIVE POPULACE, PARTICULARLY WOMEN. THIS INEXHAUSTIBLE ACCESS AND POWER OVER THE INDIGENOUS POPULATION RESULTED IN A STRING OF ABUSES TO TAKE PLACE WITHOUT ANY REPERCUSSIONS. THIS ULTIMATELY CONTRIBUTED TO THE MISCONCEPTION THAT BLACK WOMEN WERE PROMISCUOUS SUBJECTS, TO BE PERCEIVED AS SUCH GLOBALLY. 70

Forgotten Histories The Eroticised Gaze: Imperial Airways Fly to Africa — Hafsa Hirsi

Imperial Airways Poster (1935) by Albert Brenet. Printed by The Haycock Press, London.

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Colonial advertisements were critical tools in galvanising mass migration to Africa.

The Imperial Airways Fly to Africa was one of many advertisements pushed by the colonial administrators for fiscal and territorial control of Africa. The advertisement poster’s fundamental concept was clearly intended for colonial supporters, with the ultimate objective of boosting tourism to the continent. When analysing the text displayed, the phrase “Fly Through Africa 1932” particularly stands out as the persuasive language employed exhibits the genuine objective behind the poster. The image is of an African lady wearing a short-beaded skirt, with her torso exposed, clutching what appears to be a basket or vase on her head, accompanied by an unclothed child clinging onto a running goat. This provocative imagery invokes the intention to elicit the primitive nature and promiscuity of African women which speaks to the wider subject concerning the relationship between the colonial gaze and the Black woman’s body.

During the colonial era of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, British advertisements had an influential effect on the outer reaches of British culture and were firmly ingrained in popular opinion of Africa. Colonial advertisements were critical tools in galvanising mass migration to Africa. The introduction of the camera and colonial imagery coming out of Africa enabled European colonists the ability to contort narratives which unfairly depicted the people they set out to document. This invasive and forceful tactic of documentation misrepresented civilisations, tribes and identities that permanently altered the perception of the continent and its people.

– BEAUTY THROUGH THE GAZE OF THE COLONISER? Advertisements such as the Imperial Airways poster and the rhetoric surrounding the conquest of Africa were merely two ways in which the enticement of the New World was expressed. This, however, poses the question on whether these two things have played a role in the eroticisation of Black women. The contrasts in cultural customs are thought to be one of the fundamental reasons why European males perceived African women as sexually explicit. It ultimately came down to the manner in which these women appeared in juxtaposition to the repressive and conservative societies in which settlers came from. This emboldened European males to scrutinise and objectify Indigenous women, who, as a result of their colonial relationship with the land and its people, saw Black women as their possession, with whom they could interact in whatever way they saw appropriate, based on their established standards.

This sense of entitlement culminated in a gender-based hierarchy, with negative stereotypes exploited to draw a distinction between ‘subordinates’ and ‘superiors’. Since the beginning of colonisation, African women have been commercialised. Racial injustices and violence have historically targeted Black women. Sarah Baartman, a South African woman who was enslaved, provides evidence of this. Sarah was ridiculed for her physique when she was transported from her home country to Europe. In the nineteenth century, she was put on display as if she were a showpiece, just to pique the curiosity of Europeans. This paved the path for the objectification and perception of Black women in the present day.

The Imperial Airways poster serves as a depiction of colonial tourism; as a result, such advertisements have influenced contemporary tourism we experience today.

“Indeed, there has been a growing appetite for African heritage, culture and traditions in the tourist’s market” (Naidu, 2009). When you evaluate how much the African continent depends on tourism for economic growth, this becomes evident. The services that the continent offers are clearly impacted by the colonial gaze. The above assertion is substantiated by my personal travel experiences in Africa, where I witnessed personally the degrading treatment of women and children by tourists who have taken advantage of them for the purpose of photo ops, without giving them any consideration or care about taking measures to safeguard them.

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Forgotten Histories The Eroticised Gaze: Imperial Airways Fly to Africa — Hafsa Hirsi

Similarly in South Africa, a number of Zulu girls work in the cultural tourism industry. In 2021, it was estimated the number of people employed in the tourism sector in South Africa was just over 2.56 million (Statista, n.d). Such encounters are exceedingly damaging and exhibit a lack of moral obligations, as especially pertaining to the hazards of commoditisation and fetishisation of young girls who are being encouraged to perform for guests and their cameras (Naidu, 2009).

While others argue that it enriches the local community and draws in tourism, where is the line drawn? What many overlook is the potential harm this may do to the women who are used for financial gain. We must ask ourselves whether this kind of tourism is sustainable and for whom it is actually profitable. Or is it just a front for the neocolonialist intentions that are veiled to make these actions seem legitimate?

The lack of autonomy these women are granted over their own bodies and the classifications that are assigned to them is an indication of the treatment that Black women continue to endure. Their representation is a reflection of the realities we currently live in, where Black women are continuously prescribed who they should be, how they ought to appear in society, and how to be perceived. We hardly hear dialogues concerning how Black women can reclaim control over their identities, bodies, and narratives, let alone what can be done to dismantle the objectification of the Black woman’s body.

It goes without saying that being continuously criticised for one’s appearance can have an adverse effect on one’s sense of self-worth, so how can this framing be dispelled?

We have to look into the historical background of the imagery and photographs that are used to represent Black women in order to evaluate critically how these women are portrayed. We also need to think about how significantly these stereotypes have formed the way our opinions are formed about Black women. It is possible to eliminate discriminatory behaviour against Black women by unlearning damaging discourse around it.

References Andrew L Josie, McClain Adam. (2022). The Lies You Tell: Disrupting the Dominant Depiction of Black Women in Film. Adult Education Research Conference. (online). Available at The Lies You Tell: Disrupting the Dominant Depiction of Black Women in Film (newprairiepress.org) Andrew, J. L and McClain, A (2022). The Lies you tell: Disrupting the Dominant Depiction of Black Women in Film. Adult Education Research Conference. Available at https://newprairiepress.org/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4189&context=aerc Benard A. F. Akeia. (2016) Colonizing Black Female Bodies Within Patriarchal Capitalism: Feminist and Human Rights Perspectives. Sexualization, Media & Society, 2 (4). (online) Available at Colonizing Black Female Bodies Within Patriarchal Capitalism (sagepub.com) (Assessed at 16 March 2024) Holmes M Caren. (2016) ‘The Colonial Roots of the Racial Fethization of Black Women’ Black & Gold Vol.2. (online). Available at The Colonial Roots of the Racial Fetishization of Black Women (wooster. edu). (Assessed at 26 March 2024) Naidu Maheshvari, (2009) ‘Topless’ traditions for tourists: Young Zulu girls in tourism, Agenda 79, (O Ranger, Terence. “Colonialism, Consciousness and the Camera.” Past & Present, no. 171, 2001. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600818. (Accessed 26 March 2024) Sandra Ponzanesi. “Beyond the Black Venus: Colonial Sexual Politics and Contemporary Visual Practices.”

Italian Colonialism. Legacies and Memories.

Oxford… (2005): n. pag. Print.

Statista (n.d). Employment in tourism industry in South America. Statista. Available at (South Africa: employment in tourism 2021 | Statista) (Accessed 25 March 2024)

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ARTS AND CULTUR 74

Arts and Culture

RE

Dance is an integral element of holistic arts and cultural practice across the African and African Caribbean Diaspora. Dance is a tool to transmit knowledge and power, but to do so, one must move away from the Eurocentric notions and recognise its foundation for exploring the ancestral memories archived in the body to be expressed through movement.

L’Antech’s Tendvalou: DECOLONISATION of the spirit, mind and body through DAAANCE — L’Antoinette Stines Hidden Dance Vocabularies: An Act of Cultural Illiteracy — Thomas Talawa Prestø Familiarity with trauma does not make it acceptable — Quentin Sledge Coming to Voice through Capoeira: Black Woman Embody a History — Ana Paz

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L’ANTECH’S TENDVALOU: DECOLONISATION OF THE SPIRIT, MIND AND BODY THROUGH DAAANCE THE L’ANTECH TECHNIQUE AIMS TO DECOLONISE THE SPIRIT, MIND AND BODY BY INCORPORATING THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF DIFFERENT CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND THEIR CAPACITY TO INSPIRE AND CONNECT WITH ONE ANOTHER.

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Arts and Culture L’Antech’s Tendvalou: DECOLONISATION of the spirit, mind and body through DAAANCE — L’Antoinette Stines

The technique daaances. Daaance is the phonetic pronunciation, in Jamaican patois, in which spirit, mind and body fluidly moves as one entity. Tendvalou was coined while naming the movements structures created in L’Antech, to codify and document the technique.

Additionally, the coining of the names for movement structures within the technique with their linguistic resonance and evocative imagery adds another layer of meaning and identity to the movement. Both the name and the movement exemplify the technical procedure.

L’Antech is the shortened name for the L’Anyah Reggae Technique. This technique had an 18-year gestation period.

The movement structures in Tendvalou embody a rich fusion of cultural and movement elements, drawing from diverse influences such as the Yanvalou, classical ballet, and the imagery of Caribbean women who constantly place their fisted hands in ‘akimbo’ on their hips. This gesture claims space and presents identity specificity. It is fascinating how language and movement intersect to convey deeper meanings and cultural resonances.

L’Antoinette Stines. L’Antech masterclass at Let’s Dance International Frontiers 2024. Photographer Brenda Edwards.

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As individuals engage with the first Anglo-Caribbean technique, they embark on a journey of self-discovery and communal expression. In the sacred space of the spiritual circle, participants find themselves extending as a technical and spiritual performer.

Tendvalou and other movements in LAntech, for example Body Wave Attitude, appears to be a testament to the power of movement as a form of cultural expression, transcending linguistic barriers to convey complex emotions, histories and identities. It exemplifies the profound ways in which culturally specific movement via a naming system can intertwine to create something truly unique and culturally resonant.

The emergence of the first Anglo-Caribbean technique, L’Antech, represents a profound synthesis of cultural, spiritual and creative influences. It is rooted in a deep connection to both ancestral wisdom and personal intuition.

This technique embodies a holistic approach to movement and expression.

Central to the practice is my profound attunement to the body’s sensations and movements, which serve as conduits for connecting with higher realms – be it the heavens, the wisdom of ancestors, or the innate creativity that resides within everyone. This intuitive connection was nurtured through years of dedicated technical training in many other techniques and styles while listening, both to one’s own inner voice and to the rhythms and energies of ritualistic drumming patterns, and reggae music. The inner voice came to realise that cultural identity specificity is valid and a path towards deconstructing with the primary purpose of reconstructing.

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My practitioner’s journey began with a reverence for tradition, cultivated through immersion in various cultural practices such as Kumina duties, Nyabinghi groundation, Revival duties and Daaance’all sessions. These experiences not only deepen one’s overstanding of Caribbean spirituality but also foster a sense of awareness about the vast knowledge that are buried “inna fe we own backyaad”.

At the heart of the first Anglo-Caribbean technique lies the concept of the spiritual circle – a universal motif found in African ancient religions and mirrored in the interconnectedness of all living beings allowing for inclusivity of ancient memories often stored inside the body.

Through this overstanding, practitioners recognise their intrinsic connection to the natural world – the trees, rivers, oceans, skies, mountains, and the ever-shifting atmosphere, and come to accept that the long limbs of ballet are indeed acceptable as found in Egyptian African movements and observed on hieroglyphics, as well as in the use of bubbling hips and lifted toes, while the technique wines yu batty, lift up yu chest and points yu tuoz is a process coined “synerbridge”. Synerbridge captures the essence of this blending of various cultures simultaneously on the body.

As individuals engage with the first Anglo-Caribbean technique, they embark on a journey of self-discovery and communal expression. In the sacred space of the spiritual circle, participants find themselves extending as a technical and spiritual performer.

Arts and Culture L’Antech’s Tendvalou: DECOLONISATION of the spirit, mind and body through DAAANCE — L’Antoinette Stines

In essence, L’Antech represents not only a dance technique but a holistic philosophy that celebrates the interconnectedness of spirit, mind and body. It is through this integration of diverse influences and profound introspection that L’Antech unlocks the transformative power of movement, enabling the technical growth of the dancers while simultaneously embodying the timeless wisdom of the Caribbean’s cultural retentions. In L’Antech Africa is dominant, with Asia and Europe at the nadir.

At its core, L’Antech is a codified expression of the collective wisdom and traditions that have shaped the AngloCaribbean identity. Divided into seven distinct sections, each meticulously crafted to honour different facets of this rich tapestry, L’Antech invites practitioners to engage with:

L’Antech stands as the pioneering embodiment of a deeply rooted connection to the spiritual, cultural and political landscapes of the Anglo-Caribbean region. Crafted with reverence and consciousness, it serves as both a dance form and a testament to my multifaceted heritage which is the norm for most Caribbean people.

• the Indigi-Traditional Barre

• Indigi-Traditional Circular Centre Floor Work • theSpirit Dance Centre

• the Indigi-Traditional Standing Centre • and the Indigi-Traditional Progressions.

Through these sections, dancers journey through movements that echo the rhythms of their ancestors and connect them to the spiritual essence of their lineage, while training to be a highly technically trained instrument.

Central to L’Antech’s ethos is an unwavering respect for Indigenous and traditional spiritual dance sources.

This reverence is evident in every step, every gesture, as practitioners pay homage to the cultural heritage that forms the foundation of L’Antech, as in the structured movement named Tendvalou.

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In the backdrop of political instabilities and societal complexities, L’Antech emerges as a beacon of resilience and unity. Reflecting Jamaica’s motto, “Out of Many, One People,” L’Antech embraces the diverse cultural influences that have shaped the region, blending African, European and Asian elements into a harmonious whole. Despite the controversies surrounding this Jamaican motto, it remains a poignant reminder of the shared humanity that transcends boundaries and divisions.

As both oral and body languages intertwine within the fabric of L’Antech, ancient retentions are brought to life, offering a glimpse into the evolution and revolution of Anglo-Caribbean culture referred to by myself as evo-revo dynamics. Through this dynamic fusion of tradition and innovation, L’Antech not only preserves the legacy of the past but also propels it forward into a vibrant and everevolving future.

The genesis of L’Antech unfolded over a meticulously crafted 18-year trajectory, yielding dancers who have seamlessly transitioned into esteemed roles within premier dance companies and acclaimed Broadway productions.

Additionally, many have assumed leadership as artistic directors of their own esteemed dance companies.

L’Antech was conceived with a profound mission: to harness the human body as a repository, meticulously cataloguing and articulating the rich tapestry of Caribbean cultures through the medium of dance. Central to its ethos is the cultivation of a technique devoid of hegemony, characterised by inclusivity and resolute self-assurance. At its core, L’Antech articulates the Mubunto maxim: “I am who I am because of who you are”, weaving together collective memories and profound cultural legacies.

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In the landscape of modern contemporary dance, fluidity and adaptability are paramount. L’Antech embodies a pedagogical approach that seamlessly interweaves ancestral wisdom with contemporary sensibilities, fostering a dynamic synergy between tradition and innovation.

Recognising the imperative to codify the wealth of cultural knowledge encoded that has been resilient over decades of hegemony led by colonial restriction, a seminal decision was made to encapsulate L’Antech’s teachings within a comprehensive textbook.

L’Antech transcends mere physicality; it represents a spiritual, cultural, ancestral, geo-natural, ecological, and cognitive embodiment of both forgotten histories and resurgent narratives. It is very essence challenges Eurocentric hegemony, while embracing the diverse array of knowledge that has traversed oceans to enrich the Caribbean region. In homage to the seminal work of Ivan Van Sertima, particularly his publication “They Came Across the Ocean”, L’Antech acknowledges that the Caribbean narrative extends far beyond conventional historical benchmarks, tracing its roots before the middle passage and enslavement.

Currently, L’Antech offers a structured curriculum comprising six distinct levels of examination, with the pinnacle—level six—accessible exclusively by invitation, culminating in professorship certification. Moreover, it stands as an accredited technique for scholarly inquiry at both the CAPE and CSEC levels.

The reach of L’Antech extends globally, with certified professors stationed in prominent cultural hubs such as UK, Germany, Japan, the United States, and its birthplace, Jamaica.

Arts and Culture L’Antech’s Tendvalou: DECOLONISATION of the spirit, mind and body through DAAANCE — L’Antoinette Stines

In the landscape of modern contemporary dance, fluidity and adaptability are paramount.

L’Antech embodies a pedagogical approach that seamlessly interweaves ancestral wisdom with contemporary sensibilities, fostering a dynamic synergy between tradition and innovation.

L’Acadco in Crystal Jungle.

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Capoeira Practitioners, Brazil. Photographer Igor Alecsander / Getty Images.

Arts and Culture Hidden Dance Vocabularies: An Act of Cultural Illiteracy — Thomas Talawa Prestø

HIDDEN DANCE VOCABULARIES: AN ACT OF CULTURAL ILLITERACY LET’S FLIP THE SCRIPT AND VIEW THE COLONIALS, THE ABUSERS, USURPERS, EXPROPRIATORS, AND APPROPRIATORS AS WORKER BEES. THEY HAVE TAKEN OUR CULTURAL ELEMENTS AND CARRIED THEM ACROSS THE WORLD, GIVING US SOMEWHERE TO BELONG WHEREVER WE ARE. FLOWERS USE BEES TO SPREAD THEIR POLLEN AND SEEDS, MUCH LIKE OUR CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS SPREAD GLOBALLY.

This phenomenon can be humorously termed “Columbus Syndrome,” where one believes they have discovered something that has long existed. Columbus wanted to reach India but ended up quite on the other side of the planet. If he were a modern man today, he probably would have driven his car straight into a mountainside, ignoring his GPS if it told him to take a sharp left, especially if it had a female voice.

He was stubborn, insisting he had found India. So much so that he called the Taíno, Arawaks, Mayans, and many other groups “Indians.” What makes this worse is how Columbus Syndrome seems to be such a solidarity thing. In solidarity with this stubborn and delusional man, many still insist on calling these people “Indian.”

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It says something about colonialism and patriarchy that people engage in 500 years of solidarity with a concept that was proven wrong even at its inception. Generational chosen stupidity should warrant a diagnosis in and of itself.

For a very long time, it has just been called curriculum and HIS-story. It is, in so many ways, a Nobel-worthy piece of fiction. However, it will not win anyone the Peace Prize. Jokes aside, it’s time to look again, to correct, and to reassess. What is hidden, what is “masked,” and what is simply plain and present, clear and clearly written, is just that the emperor is naked, and only those who can read can see his clothes. So, everyone pretends to know how to read, read us, read art, read quality.

There is no Western notation system capable of notating polyrhythmic African complex compositions, and no Western notation system capable of capturing polycentric African dance movement. Artists trained only in these Western institutions deem themselves competent enough to read the quality, nuance, texture, and context of African Diaspora and African and Caribbean dance art. By what authority should one question, because it’s not by education, and it’s not by practice; it is purely by hubris.

Just as a bee believes it has conquered every flower it lands on, so too do those who appropriate Black culture believe they have made it their own. In their attempts to dominate and claim these cultural expressions, they inadvertently spread the very essence they seek to possess. They have aided in disseminating our cultural secrets, which can be deciphered only by the few and worthy but enjoyed by many.

The more they steal, the clearer it becomes who really owns the riches. What is taken can never serve as more than empty shells to the thief. Therefore, the thief always returns to the scene of the crime, coming closer to the inevitable realisation that one keeps stealing because one does not have, nor is able to create.

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African and African Diaspora dance styles are unified by their transcultural appeal, resonating across various cultures, ethnicities and nations through their inherent charm, resonance, and cultural intelligence, rather than coercive imposition. These dance and music forms do not merely exist; they communicate deeply, understanding their audiences intimately. They engage both insiders and outsiders simultaneously, challenging and subverting entrenched Euro-Western cultural power structures.

Through this dynamic interaction, these dance styles reorder societal hierarchies and create a unique space where audiences are not only spectators but active participants.

To truly comprehend African and African Diaspora dance forms, we must confront and reject the narratives imposed by colonial observers who were not only illiterate in Africanist cultural forms but also prejudiced against them.

These outsiders often dismissed complex and nuanced practices as mere entertainment or, worse, as primitive rituals, failing to recognise them as sophisticated systems of knowledge and communication.

Arts and Culture Hidden Dance Vocabularies: An Act of Cultural Illiteracy — Thomas Talawa Prestø

It says something about colonialism and patriarchy that people engage in 500 years of solidarity with a concept that was proven wrong even at its inception.

Colonial observers’ descriptions of African and Caribbean dance practices as “hidden” reflect their own biases and limitations. African and Caribbeans buying into the narrative of our practices being “hidden” privileges the gaze and the perspective of the coloniser, and ignores the fact that most of our dancing, most of our enjoyment was done amongst ourselves, in bush harbours and hush harbours.

Bush Harbours were secret, secluded places, often in dense woods or remote areas, where enslaved Africans would gather away from the watchful eyes of their oppressors.

These gatherings were crucial for maintaining and preserving African cultural and spiritual practices, which were otherwise suppressed by the enslavers. Hush Harbours were secret meeting places, usually buildings where wet blankets were placed on the walls and kettles placed in the centre of the room thus absorbing the vibrational sounds of the drumming and dancing and soundproofing the place so that the oppressors would not hear the activity that was for us and by us. These clandestine gatherings were essential for the preservation and evolution of African spiritual and cultural practices in the Americas and the Caribbean.

They were done amongst ourselves and not for mass entertainment. It is in these practices that we find our core, that which is supposedly hidden. I find a much better term for it to be exclusive(!).

Caribbean and African Diaspora dance practices have often been wilfully misinterpreted and misrepresented in scholarly and popular discourse. This misunderstanding is not coincidental but a deliberate result of the colonial project and the process of enslavement. Historically, these vibrant and deeply expressive forms of dance have been examined through the lenses of criminology and anthropology far more frequently than through the perspectives of performance and art. This skewed perception is rooted in a history of oppression, cultural misunderstanding, and the marginalisation of non-European cultural expressions.

– HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF OPPRESSION AND ILLEGALITY Many Caribbean and African Diaspora dance practices emerged in contexts of resistance and survival. Enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and the Americas used dance as a means of preserving their cultural heritage, expressing resistance to oppression, and maintaining a sense of community and identity. However, these practices were often viewed with suspicion and hostility by colonial authorities and slaveholders, who saw them as subversive and potentially threatening.

• Criminalisation: Many of these dances were explicitly outlawed or suppressed because they were seen as dangerous or immoral. For example, drumming and dancing were frequently banned because they were perceived as means of inciting rebellion or preserving African traditions that colonisers sought to eradicate.

• Deliberate Misrepresentation: The European colonial gaze often failed to appreciate the depth and complexity of these dance forms. Instead, they were purposefully exoticised or demonised, depicted as primitive or barbaric rather than sophisticated expressions of art and culture. This misrepresentation was a strategic part of the colonial narrative, aiming to portray Africans as savages devoid of culture and civilisation.

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Caribbean and African Diaspora dance practices have often been wilfully misinterpreted and misrepresented in scholarly and popular discourse.

– ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND CRIMINOLOGICAL FOCUS

– THE EUROPEANIST GAZE AND MORAL CONDEMNATION

Given this historical context, it is not surprising that Caribbean and African Diaspora dance practices have often been studied within the fields of anthropology and criminology rather than recognised as performance art.

These fields typically view such practices through the lens of the “other,” focusing on them as cultural artifacts or social phenomena rather than as legitimate art forms.

The Europeanist gaze has historically dominated the discourse on art and culture, often marginalising nonEuropean forms of expression. This gaze tends to moralise and condemn bodily practices that do not conform to European standards of art and aesthetics.

• Anthropology: Anthropologists have studied these dances as cultural practices, often emphasising their role in social cohesion, ritual and identity. While this approach can provide valuable insights, it can also reduce complex artistic expressions to mere cultural functions.

• Criminology: Criminological perspectives have sometimes framed these dances as deviant behaviours or expressions of resistance to social norms. This perspective can pathologise these practices, failing to recognise their artistic merit and the profound cultural narratives they embody.

• Moral Judgments: Caribbean and African Diaspora dances are often judged as overly sensual, provocative, or morally suspect. These judgments are rooted in colonial attitudes that devalue non-European cultural practices.

• Artistic Dismissal: Even today, these dance forms are rarely recognised as high art. They are frequently dismissed as entertainment or spectacle, lacking the conceptual depth and artistic integrity supposedly found in European dance traditions.

– LACK OF ENGAGEMENT AND UNDERSTANDING The continued marginalisation of Caribbean and African Diaspora dance practices as art is often upheld by individuals who have never engaged deeply with these cultural practices and have made little effort to understand their semiology.

• Superficial Engagement: Many critiques of these dance forms are based on superficial observations rather than informed, respectful engagement. Critics often overlook the rich semiotic systems that underpin these dances, including their gestures, rhythms and symbolic meanings.

• Insufficient Scholarship: There is a relative paucity of scholarly work that treats these dance practices as serious art forms. This gap in the literature perpetuates their marginalisation and the misconceptions surrounding them.

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Arts and Culture Hidden Dance Vocabularies: An Act of Cultural Illiteracy — Thomas Talawa Prestø

– TOWARDS RECOGNITION AND APPRECIATION To shift the narrative, it is essential to approach Caribbean and African Diaspora dance practices with the same respect and analytical rigour applied to European art forms.

This involves: • Deep Engagement: Scholars and critics must engage deeply with these dance practices, learning from practitioners and immersing themselves in the cultural contexts from which these dances emerge.

• Artistic Validation: It is crucial to recognise and validate these dances as legitimate art forms, appreciating their complexity, conceptual depth, and artistic merit.

• Critical Lens: Approaching these practices with a critical lens is paramount. This involves recognising and challenging the violent Europeanist gaze that has historically devalued these cultural expressions. Special focus should be given to the knowledge preserved in the hush harbours and bush harbours—spaces free from the corrupting influence of colonial observers.

Reclaiming African, African Diasporan and Caribbean dance forms involves correcting these misinterpretations and actively validating the visibility and transparency with which these practices have always been performed within their own communities. It requires recognising these dances not as cryptic or secretive but as clear articulations of cultural identity, history and resistance. This recognition is an act of cultural literacy and respect, acknowledging the richness and complexity of African and African Diaspora traditions.

To “read” these dances properly is to understand their movements as expressions of a coherent, vibrant culture that speaks loudly and proudly through time. It is to engage with them not as relics of a misunderstood past but as living, breathing manifestations of resilience and creativity.

And to “write” and “create poetry” with these movements means actively participating in their ongoing evolution, contributing to a living heritage that defies the simplistic and prejudicial readings of the past.

By doing so, we respect these dance forms as dynamic embodiments of African and Diaspora life, recognising their full humanity and the depth of their cultural expressions.

This is not just an act of recovery but an ongoing investment in their inherent value and significance.

This process of spreading cultural elements creatively to other parts than one’s immediate surroundings is the core of Black expressive art, along with the technology of revitalising the exhausted body, soul and mind. Anywhere there is Africana expression and Africana art, there is a pocket of home where any Black youth or person may step in, for the duration of the rhythm, and completely belong and be restored. There are lingering lessons of cool, of stance, and belonging that one carries out of this space.

Some heat keeps radiating and allows for social navigation.

Those left out in the cold feel the heat and want it. It is craved—this cool, this heat, this paradox that is Black survival in a hostile environment.

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In every movement, every song, and every rhythm, there is a story that speaks loudly and clearly if only we take the time to learn its language.

– THE RIGHT TO OPACITY

– REFRAMING THE NARRATIVE

Edouard Glissant’s concept of the “right to opacity” provides a framework for understanding the cultural dynamics at play. Glissant argues that the insistence on transparency and legibility by the dominant culture is a form of control and domination. The opacity of African Diasporan cultural practices, therefore, is not a deficit but a deliberate and rightful assertion of identity. It challenges the colonial gaze and refuses to be fully comprehended by it, maintaining a space of autonomy and resistance. As the proverb goes, “until the lion tells its own stories, the telling of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” This right to opacity is an essential part of reclaiming our narratives.

To shift the narrative from “hidden” to “encrypted” or misread due to wilful culturally cognitive impairment is to acknowledge the agency and intelligence of African Diasporic peoples. It recognises that these cultural expressions were, and are, fully visible and legible to those within the community. This reframing is crucial in decolonising our understanding of these practices and honouring their true significance.

African Diasporan cultures have long utilised this opacity not just as a means of survival but as a form of empowerment. The complexity and richness of these practices are clear and meaningful within their own contexts, offering layers of interpretation and engagement that are missed by those outside these cultural frameworks.

The supposed “hidden” nature of these practices is thus a reflection of the observers’ limitations rather than the practices themselves.

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As the proverb says, “The axe forgets but the tree remembers.”

The narratives imposed by colonial observers often forget the deep-rooted memories and histories embedded in these cultural practices. To truly honour these traditions, we must remember and recognise the perspectives of those who lived and created them.

Another fitting proverb reminds us, “Do not look where you fell. Look where you slipped.” This calls for a re-evaluation of our historical narratives and an acknowledgment of the points of misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

In every movement, every song, and every rhythm, there is a story that speaks loudly and clearly if only we take the time to learn its language. The task for contemporary audiences and scholars is not to decode or uncover hidden meanings but to listen and learn with respect and humility. As the saying goes, “Once you carry your own water, you’ll remember every drop.” Engaging deeply with these practices allows us to appreciate their full significance and to remember the efforts and histories they encapsulate.

Arts and Culture Hidden Dance Vocabularies: An Act of Cultural Illiteracy — Thomas Talawa Prestø

The narrative of hidden dance vocabularies is a misinterpretation rooted in the cultural illiteracy of colonial perspectives. African Diasporan practices like Capoeira, L’agya, Danmye, Kalinda and spirituals are not cryptic or secretive to those within the culture. They are clear, powerful articulations of identity, resistance and history.

Reframing these practices as visible and transparent celebrates their true significance and honours the cultural literacy of the communities that created and sustained them.

Through this recognition, we engage with these practices not as relics of a misunderstood past but as dynamic, living traditions that continue to evolve and inspire. This is an act of cultural respect and an acknowledgment of the profound intelligence embedded in African Diasporan cultural expressions. By doing so, we reclaim the full humanity and complexity of these traditions, celebrating their ongoing contributions to the global cultural tapestry.

This is the true essence of African Diasporan dance vocabularies—visible, vibrant and eternally significant. As the proverb wisely states, “They tried to bury us, they did not know we were seeds.”

References Asante, Molefi Kete. (2007) The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony. Routledge.

Browning, Barbara. (1995) Samba: Resistance in Motion. Indiana University Press.

Capoeira, Nestor. (2002) Capoeira: Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game. North Atlantic Books.

Daniel, Yvonne. (2005) Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé. University of Illinois Press.

Floyd, Samuel A. (1995) The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States. Oxford University Press.

Glissant, Édouard. (1997) Poetics of Relation.

University of Michigan Press.

Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. (1996) Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts. Praeger Publishers.

Kubik, Gerhard. (1999) Africa and the Blues.

University Press of Mississippi.

Martin, Randy. (1998) Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics. Duke University Press.

Monson, Ingrid. (2007) Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa. Oxford University Press.

Thompson, Robert Farris. (1983) Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy.

Random House.

Calinda (1783). The Picture Art Collection / Alamy.

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Quentin Sledge. Photographer Peggy McHale Joseph.

Arts and Culture Familiarity with Trauma does not make it acceptable — Quentin Sledge

FAMILIARITY WITH TRAUMA DOES NOT MAKE IT ACCEPTABLE

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Today I am frustrated I am frustrated because I can see issues with Black dance The nit-picky issues that people have. Those elements of control imposed on our artistic bodies It’s frustrating because nothing ever seems to be good enough There is a perpetual drive towards a perfection which does not exist There is an imposition of imperfection, a handme-down from 400+ years of dehumanising/demoralising of our bodies, our beliefs as a means to a racist end And I am expected to defy it To fight so hard to prove myself worthy, moral, just, human I am to accept everyone’s opinion but my own I am to please, entertain, shuck and jive like the welcome dances of my kin across the Atlantic, all for the white gaze It makes me sick It makes me hate Loathe Reject even, my Blackness Simply because I no longer wish to exist in defiance I don’t need to prove myself I am not drawn to whiteness in the ways that I once was.

As an African I can accomplish all things For I am human I am the measuring stick of human progress I need not compete with whiteness I need not succumb to Blackness All that is required of me is presentness The euphoric state of being characterised by existing outside of time Existing without concern of any gaze Existing in harmony with nature and the self Existing as God, my ancestors, and the forces of nature have intended Yet for 28 years, counted in white male mechanical time, I have paid to live I have lived to achieve And I achieve to be validated To separate myself from the darkness associated with my grouping, my Blackness A darkness defined by whiteness and righteously assigned to my African ancestors Who understandably accepted this definition However toxic and racist it may have been Those people, to whom I owe my existence, characterised themselves by opposition to oppression Opposition to the powers that persisted And having removed the depth of their indigeneity became reborn as the negro 92

A resilient species A beautiful, strong people built for trauma Built to withstand the storms of evil conjured like magic by white minds They created, and expressed, and thrived In defiance of the circumstances cast upon them They wrote, and spoke, and preached in the white man’s tongue They danced and praised and rejoiced in the white man’s tradition, his religion, his dance And I thank them I love them I exalt them And now I am moved to ask them When is enough enough?

When do we choose to step out of this infatuation with oppression?

When do we reclaim the truth of our history?

When is it time to be African once more?

Because the bata drum calls me The ogunikan sings her songs in my dreams I catch whiffs of the African violet early in the morning, which beckons me to rise I am exhausted carrying the burden of Blackness, of racism, of whiteness I wish to go home now To dance in the ways of my ancestors To honour them with our survival and unshaken joy I long for the baobab And the ring shout And yet here I am in this Black space Hearing the trauma Watching, no feeling the fight for equality carried out across the landscape of my body Feeling every correction Every “it’s not enough” Every “more, more MORE” And I weep For those who died so that I may have the privilege of anger For those who never got to experience the freedom of homesickness For my brothers and sisters so deeply entrenched in the nightmare, they liken this existence to reality An indelible truth But I must believe that return is inevitable In the meantime, what am I to do Maybe change will come sooner than I think I have to hope It’s all that I truly have left

Arts and Culture Familiarity with Trauma does not make it acceptable — Quentin Sledge

Quentin Sledge. Photographer Shon Curtis.

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COMING TO VOICE THROUGH CAPOEIRA: BLACK WOMAN EMBODY A HISTORY

THIS STRUCTURE OF REFLECTIONS AND ANALYSIS IS HERE TO MIRROR THE ESSENCE OF CAPOEIRA WHICH IS ALWAYS IN CONVERSATION WITH THE PAST, PRESENT AND POTENTIAL FUTURE. FINDING A WAY TO EVOKE DIFFERENT MEMORIES FROM OUR EMBODIMENTS. THE READER SHOULD TRY TO FLOW AND SURRENDER, CONSIDER THIS BEING READ IN THE FORM OF CYCLES. THE WORD IÊÊ WHICH IS AN ACT OF CALLING ATTENTION AND ATTRACTING ENERGY BEFORE THE LADAINHA (LITANY/PRAYER). TO CONCLUDE THE WORD IÊ IS REPEATED TO CLOSE THE RITUAL.

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Arts and Culture Coming to Voice through Capoeira: Black Woman Embody a History — Ana Paz

Ana Paz and Rebekah Williams playing Capoeira in Itaparica Bahia Brazil (2023).

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Deciding to focus on the invisibility of Black women in the space, that feeling that was felt each time, it opened an opportunity to widen my understanding of not only capoeira but specific histories that speak to who we are today.

Iêê Everything that remains in silence everything that remains in silence one day you will hear everything that remains in silence one day you will hear one day it will come That you will find the value of your voice All the fight all the pain That also carries love Oh, time will show Because time is our father Capoeira our mother The seed of resistance That you cannot deny if you are a mandingueira if you are a mandingueiro put your hand on the ground you will feel the vibration yeee the strength that comes from below o ya ya our ancestral world camará long live my god!

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Iêê Tudo que ficar no silêncio tudo que ficar no silêncio um dia vai ouvir tudo que ta no silencio um dia vai ouvir Ay um dia vai chegar Que você vai encontrar o valor da sua voz Toda luta toda dor Que também carrega amor Ai o tempo vai mostra Por que o tempo e nosso pai Capoeira a nossa mãe A semente de resistência Que não dá pra rá negar se você é mandingueira se você é mandingueiro bota lá a mão no chão vai sentir a vibração yeee a força que vem de baixo o ya ya nosso mundo ancestral camará viva meu deus!

Arts and Culture Coming to Voice through Capoeira: Black Woman Embody a History — Ana Paz

Capoeira called me through an audition. An audition for a play called Firecracker by Xinha Morias. It was an interwoven non-linear story and at the heart was this AfroBrazilian martial art, capoeira. The story jumped through time between events during the beginning of the transAtlantic slave trade, focused on the reign of Queen Nzinga of Ndogo and Matamba (modern-day Angola) and the assassination of Brazilian Councilwoman, Marielle Franco.

This all-female cast depicted Black women as warriors and integral to the fight for justice whether reflecting on the past or the present. I did not get the role, but when the show premiered, I was moved to tears. It was at that point, one of the most important art pieces I had ever seen that awakened something in me. The movement, the music, the stories felt like they were embodiments of resistance that I recognised in myself. Somewhere in my body I knew it. It was after this experience that I decided to go to my first capoeira class.

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that is widely understood as a form of Black and indigenous resistance that incorporates music, spoken word, storytelling and rhythmic acrobatic movements. Using capoeira, many enslaved people were able to find refuge from their oppressors to formulate communities and create strategies of resistance to fight against conditions of slavery.

My particular introduction to capoeira set me up to believe that Black women and capoeira were two things that would go hand in hand. However, when I began to practise capoeira and even till this day, more often than not, I am the only Black woman or Black person entirely. This posed a question in my mind as to why?

– INTERLUDE Dona maria do Camboata Ela chega na venda dáum salto mortal Dona maria do camboata E do camboatá é do camboatá Dona Maria from Camboata She arrives at the market giving a somersault Dona Maria Do Camboata From Camboata from Camboata Deciding to focus on the invisibility of Black women in the space, that feeling that was felt each time, it opened an opportunity to widen my understanding of not only capoeira but specific histories that speak to who we are today. What it also highlighted was that my experience could actually be important to balance the inequalities and biases still held in how our histories are recorded and how they inform our futures.

There are unique references in capoeira of Black women being present. Songs that explicitly talk about women playing capoeira or becoming the embodiments of resistance within revolutions. Dona Maria do Camboatá and Maria Felipe De Oliveira, are some of the women documented to have fought for freedom in Brazil and they often represent many other women whose stories may have been erased or not documented. bell hooks (1989) writes in Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness, that “spaces can be real and imagined.

Spaces can tell stories and unfold histories. Spaces can be interrupted, appropriated, and transformed through artistic and literary practice”.

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In bell hooks’ essay on radical openness she states: “The oppressed struggle in language to recover ourselves, to reconcile, to reunite, to renew. Our words are not without meaning, they are an action, a resistance. Language is also a place of struggle” - hooks (1989, p.225).

What bell hooks expresses here informs me that there are many possibilities in which we can reclaim or recover self. When I think of an opportunity for radical openness, I perceive that through love as the standard, although the idea of love is usually disregarded when thinking about creating the futures we want. It is only through this where we reclaim our bodies. Our bodies are spaces that should interrogate structures, actions, that have been upheld, imposed or embodied. If we are to consider capoeira as a language, how it in fact highlights how bodies are located in struggle but also the locations of that struggle. For this reason, capoeira reveals itself as a space that can interrogate structures. Capoeira’s physical orientation forces an integration of something internal as we begin to move in particular ways that we are not so accustomed to. These ways of moving begin to interrogate the layers of movement of bodies we have embodied due to a relationship between the internal self to the external self that constant dialogue from the inside out that began in our mother’s womb.

When we decide to resist this or uphold it, when we become more aware of our internal world, when we walk on hands, invert our world to say yes or to say no, sim o não, to resist structures that orient our bodies in particular ways that are oppressive. It is that self-awareness that allows us to choose where we want to stand and how.

That awakening within what our bodies carry, brings about transformative ways of seeing and moving in the world around us.

I choose to understand capoeira as survival.

For each time the ships left the shores of west Africa or the port of Luanda.

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I choose to see it as a direct mirror of a time, place and event, I choose to see that I am making space to embody the movement of bodies rooted in resistance from a particular time, place and event.

For this reason, there is a constant motion of shifting to the past, present and future. It is cyclical showing how it can be so many different things at any one given moment.

So personally I can’t just call it a martial art or dance. It is almost a very intricate, simple but complicated language that belongs to every part of my being but that I still don’t fully understand.

Our bodies are spaces that should interrogate structures, actions, that have been upheld, imposed or embodied. This just may be what you have to do to survive and as the great Toni Morrison once stated, “sometimes you don’t survive whole, you only survive in parts”. For this reason, the idea of standing in resistance has to be a very conscious choice, it is particular and unique to the bodies at play, where one must interrogate each microhistory occurring or that has occurred or is yet to within our bodies. The same can be said for the practice of capoeira itself.

These different embodiments, identities, histories, and locations carried by the practice and our bodies are in constant conversation with one another in the roda of capoeira just like in the wider roda of life.

Embodiments here are framed as the embedded identities and corporeality affected by culture and society over several generations.

Arts and Culture Coming to Voice through Capoeira: Black Woman Embody a History — Ana Paz

Capoeira also is in itself, a structure that can be oppressive, since it has also inherited and become distorted by systems of oppression and violence.

Embodiments for me are all the identifications of self that are held in our bodies and can produce a location of struggle. For me that might be identified as being a Black woman living in Malmö, raised in southeast London, master educated, artist, queer, someone who grew up in a diasporic environment of deprivation but opportunity, instability but care, abandonment yet with an abundance of community.

Someone who is an immigrant, born in Lisbon Portugal, a child of immigrants, people whose bodies had escaped a civil war in Angola, a war that is an extension of the several years of occupation and colonialism that has unrooted and displaced so many lives, so many families. I hold all of this when I come into the roda. There is also love, there is also joy, things that came before, knowledge and ways of being that were forgotten, never having an opportunity to be spoken or heard because of violence that has severed relationships and memories which is just a result of what our bodies do with trauma.

There is something about the language of capoeira, the history it holds, the music, the movement and the cyclical energy in the space that makes me aware of these embodiments.

I then recognised that in order to recover myself, to heal all the pieces and my legacies of pain, it requires a practice of remembering. Remembering makes me conscious that I am “...not just who I am in the present but where I am coming from, the multiple voices within me... When I say then that these words emerge from suffering, I refer to that personal struggle to name that location from which I come to voice” (bell hooks, 1989, p.225). The important step is to make an understanding of these legacies of pain, it is in no way to rationalise it, and there is also an awareness that not remembering is also an action, a choice in its own right.

But this is what capoeira is and could be moving forward, more consciously, a tool for remembering, releasing and reclaiming what is held in our bodies.

It was and will always be a struggle to remember, to unpick who we are in each moment, to feel something in our bodies, to collect that memory and not forget, to interrogate or reclaim. Choosing to understand the discomfort, choosing to flow in resistance, but I found in my experience that when doing this, through me, aspects of histories may be awakened that may have been diluted, forgotten or erased. If we believe knowledge begins from where you are and the memories that we carry in our bodies helps us to understand that the past, the present and future are always in conversation with one another, just like in the roda (circle) of capoeira.

Adeus povo bom adeus Adeus que já vou embora pela ondas do mar eu vim pelas ondas do mar eu vou embora Goodbye people good bye Goodbye, I’m leaving By the waves of the sea I came By the waves of the sea I am leaving. ye!

References hooks, b. (1989). Choosing The Margin as a Space of Radical Openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, 36, 15–23. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/44111660 Morrison, T. (2021). Toni Morrison on Trauma, Survival, and Finding Meaning. The Connecticut Forum. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=5xvJYrSsXPA. (Accessed 5 July 2024).

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AFROMAN

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AfroManifesto

NIFESTO We return to the ambitions of the first issue of BlackInk, the imagined Black future rooted in our shared Diasporic experience.

– What have we learnt over the last five years?

– How do we continue to dream amidst challenges?

– How has our vison for the future changed?

Black Manifesto! Aftermaths — nora chipaumire Dreaming of Joy — Caroline Johnson Black Women’s Technologies of Imagination and Interiority — Francesca Sobande The Unspoken Truth: Black Femicide — Maya Brookes

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nora chipaumire at Black History Month Leicester Launch 2018. Photographer Nick Osbourne.

AfroManifesto BLACK MANIFESTO! Part 2 – Aftermaths — nora chipaumire

BLACK MANIFESTO! PART 2 – AFTERMATHS THIS THE SECOND EDITION OF AN ONGOING CONVERSATION AROUND MANIFESTATIONS OF BLACK LIFE. THE QUESTIONS WE ARE DETERMINED TO ASK AND NOT AFRAID OR APOLOGETIC TO ASK. 1. YOUTH — creative repudiation — who else must DEGAGE???

2. Elders - wisdom is nothing unless you share — what is the Black creative elder group doing to nurture emerging knowledge industries?

3. Black theory IS action - when was the last time you DID, MADE, LIVED

Black Manifesto! Aftermaths recognises not just a moment in time, but a continued need to keep action and activism alive. In this podcast, hosted by Pawlet Brookes and created

by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, Black women from around the world respond to nora chipaumire’s provocations, addressing how we shape a new world in which Black women are seen and heard.

4. ON care, self-care or pure rampant narcissism 5. ON loadshedding, climate nonhumans activist — another empty frontier — Africans populate the Mediterranean Sea! Wake up 6. You say art, I say heART! Exist in the margins - outside of the frame — the freedom of the non-canon 7. Time zones, geographies and other monuments — DEFY them, can’t you?

8. The more things change the more they stay the same — TOUCHÉ - more MBE s to our heroic artists.

9. Future IS past present! Don’t sleep on Africa — fucking touché 10. Raging Black knowledge — does anyone give a — in the age of TikTok, X, Instagram??

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DREAMING OF JOY WHEN I DREAM OF JOY, I DREAM OF BIRTHDAYS, OF LAUGHTER, OF FRIENDS IN THE PARK, OF MY NIECE AND NEPHEW SKATING DOWN THE STREET, OF FRIENDS PERFORMING THEIR FIRST ALBUMS ON STAGE, OF SINGING, OF DANCING, OF WATER, OF SUNSETS, OF A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE CAN BE THEMSELVES AS LOUD AS THEY DESIRE, OF BEING OFF BEAT OR OUT OF TUNE AND STILL SINGING ANYWAY, OF FINDING A NEW PLACE TO FREQUENT, OF A CLEAN HOME FREE OF MESS AND MEANNESS, OF MY GRANDMOTHER, OF FINDING A NEW HOBBY, OF WITNESSING MY MOTHER’S JOYFUL CHILDISHNESS SPRING INTO ACTION, OF MY FATHER FALLING ASLEEP IN THE SUN, OF MY SISTER’S LAUGHTER, OF PRESSING MY TEETH INTO MANGOS ON A BEACH, OF SUMMERTIME, OF RETURNING TO JAMAICA FOR FUN NOT A FUNERAL, OF EATING MY PARTNER’S FRIED FISH AND FALLING ASLEEP IN EACH OTHER’S ARMS, OF FREEDOM.

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AfroManifesto Dreaming of Joy — Caroline Johnson

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Audre Lorde (c. 1970s). CSU Archives / Everett Colelction / Alamy.

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In the heart of a colonising country like the UK, dreaming turned to action is a powerful mechanism for dismantling generations worth of colonial harm that has pushed forward racism and homophobia as tools of oppression upon its colonised entities such as Jamaica and Ghana.

Joy is necessary for dreaming, and it is necessary for liberation. It is the waking world where Black women work hard to forge a path towards freedom, putting their dreams into action.

There is no shortage of Black women across the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and the Americas who have dreamt of a better world and made it so. In the UK, I think of Phyllis Akua Opoku-Gyimah, also known as Lady Phyll. She is a British-Ghanian woman, trade unionist and powerhouse who co-founded UK Black Pride in 2005, which is the world’s largest celebration of LGBTQ+ people of colour, according to its website. UK Black Pride, founded about 36 years after the Stonewall uprising of 1969 in New York City, famously associated with the legacy of Marsha P Johnson, is what coalition building across time and borders looks like.

Lady Phyll’s work actively moves towards creating a world where people’s right to respect, humanity and protection is honoured, where shame is shed and racist violence no longer rips apart the lives of Black and Brown people. In the heart of a colonising country like the UK, dreaming turned to action is a powerful mechanism for dismantling generations worth of colonial harm that has pushed forward racism and homophobia as tools of oppression upon its colonised entities such as Jamaica and Ghana.

Lady Phyll’s works lives among the collective imagining of a better world made by Black women such as Audre Lorde, Angela Davis and Hafizah August Geter, author of The Black Period: On Personhood, Race and Origin. Geter calls attention to We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba who envisions.

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“a restructured society in a world where we have everything we need: food, shelter, education, health, art, beauty, clean water, and more things that are foundation to our personal and community safety”. In this way, Geter says, “Abolition, rooted in our refusal to surrender our right to dream.”

As of late, I have been thinking deeply of what world I would like to see: where people are free from colonial, genocidal entities; where children’s human rights and livelihoods are protected; where people can protest against war and not be brutalised; where the Indigenous people of lands can live their lives without fear of their home being stolen, bulldozed and exploited; where working people are respected and can earn wages that sustain a life that covers necessities and all that brings them joy. This act of dreaming is ancestral, to me specifically matrilineal and on a global scale; it is a form of healing, of medicine and imagining. It is old, never outdated.

As Audre Lorde says, “The Black mother within each of us ––the poet –– whispers our dreams: I feel therefore, I can be free.” I feel the joy of people joining together and fighting for a world that places people’s lives and wellbeing over profit, therefore it can be so.

Lorde continues, “There are no new ideas still waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations, and recognitions from within ourselves –– along with the renewed courage to try them out.”

In this world, I recognise that we must also rest. Our bodies are sights of liberation, as Tricia Hersey says. And Black women are all too familiar with the weight of labour on our bones. We will rest, we will heal and we will dream along our path to liberation.

AfroManifesto Dreaming of Joy — Caroline Johnson

References Geter, H. A. (2023) The Black Period: On Personhood, Race and Origin. Penguin Randomhouse.

Kaba, M. (2021) We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice: 1 (Abolitionist Papers, 1). Haymarket Books.

Lorde, A. (1984) Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.

Crossing Press.

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, co-founder and director of UK Black Pride (2021) Photographer by Mark Kerrison/In Pictures / Getty Images.

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BLACK WOMEN’S TECHNOLOGIES OF IMAGINATION AND INTERIORITY WORDS HAVE MEANINGS. THEY CAN EXPRESS SPECIFIC SENTIMENTS, DESCRIBE THE DETAILS OF LIFE AND POWERFULLY INVOKE IDEAS AND THEIR HISTORIES. IN THE OPENING OF IMAGINATION: A MANIFESTO, RUHA BENJAMIN INVITES READERS TO REFLECT ON THE DEPTH OF THE TERM “IMAGINATION” AND SIMILAR WORDS SUCH AS “IMAGINARY” AND “IMAGINE”. WHILE READING BENJAMIN’S RESONANT BOOK, I THOUGHT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY OF IMAGINATION AND IMAGINATION AS TECHNOLOGY.

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AfroManifesto Black Women’s Technologies of Imagination and Interiority — Francesca Sobande

Melba Roy Mouton, Assistant Chief of Research Programs at NASA and head of the group of NASA mathematicians (1964). NASA / Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images.

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To draw on the words of Benjamin (2024), “[i]maginaton, by definition, takes many different forms” and “I refuse to police the parameters of imagination”. Similarly, technology – for better or worse – is expansive and entwined with imagination(s). The creative and open-ended ways that people conjure up ideas – that is, imagination – can be central to creating knowledge and physical infrastructures, as well as strengthening social values, cultural memory and communal relations.

The origins of the word “technology” are open to contestation but are often attributed to the Greek words “techne” and “logos”, with techne relating to forms of craft, art and other making practices, and logos relating to external articulations of inward thoughts and interior imaginations. Often associated with innovation and skills that generate “new” equipment, processes and materials, technology is a word that connects to various perceptions of ingenuity and the form that it takes. Among these are inventive, curatorial and communication practices that involve incisive forms of self-expression and collective work to make life more liveable and nourishing.

When meaningfully accounting for the broadness of what can constitute technological experiences, a focus on digital culture can seem less important than a focus on the creativity inherent to technology.

Turning away from trending topics and popular platforms, and towards embracing the works and insights of Black women in Britain from previous decades, in this brief piece of writing I consider some of the many and layered ways that technology has been harnessed as part of a sense of togetherness between and testament to, Black women in Britain.

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The lens of cameras, photography and other creative mediums and meditations can contribute to and symbolise technological elements of imagination(s). Expressions of care, intimacy and vulnerability are often present in ways of artmaking, co-creating, remembering and agitating – all of which can be part of the knowledge production that is crucial to technologies. With that in mind, in March 2024 I visited Washington DC’s National Museum of Women in the Arts, where I spent time learning about the works of Black women artists and photographers, while considering the relationship between art and technology in recent history.

While visiting the Library and Research Center at the Museum, I read writing and sat with art by Maud Sulter, an artist and writer of Scottish and Ghanaian heritage. Such work included Sulter’s insightful comments on “the fakery” infused in certain approaches to digital imaging – pointing to how digital technology complicates ideas about imagination, art, relationality and realness. Elsewhere at the Museum, were Sulter’s poignant reflections on Britain’s vibrant Black presence and the ways that this has been conveyed in artworks and curations, including by Black women who challenge individualistic ideas about who/what creates/ curates art.

You may be asking, what does any/all of that have to do with Black women’s experience of technology? Depending on how you define both imagination and technology, the answer may be: a lot.

While they can be crucial to experiences of it, technology is about much more than just instrumentalist mechanics, engineering, tools and systems. In other words, technology and Black women’s harnessing of it includes fluid forms of creativity, cultural critic work, and a foregrounding of imagination which puts history and the arts in dialogue (e.g. the collective creations and impacts of Black women’s arts movements, poetic insights, protests and archives).

AfroManifesto Black Women’s Technologies of Imagination and Interiority — Francesca Sobande

In Britain today, where freedom of speech and self-expression is increasingly suppressed by state and governmental actors, Black women continue to find ways to not only subvert oppressive forces, but to nurture imagination intergenerationally.

In Britain today, where freedom of speech and selfexpression is increasingly suppressed by state and governmental actors, Black women continue to find ways to not only subvert oppressive forces, but to nurture imagination intergenerationally. Examples of such efforts range from Black women’s recording and sharing of ancestral recipes and rituals, to creative uses of visual symbols, textual signs and remixed iconography to avoid the suppression of specific public messages.

Whether it is in online spaces or offline environments, knowledge of how to tend to (y)ourselves and rupture surveillance forces is shared far and wide between Black women, including through artworks, oral histories, archives and utterances rarely deemed “technologies” in British society.

Although many media and public conversations about technology tend to focus on digital culture and the internet, technology concerns much more than tangible devices and what people say and do online. By learning more about the histories of Black women in Britain, including social, political and creative movements and practices, we can embrace and critique ideas about technology without overlooking the many different and collective imagination(s) that shape it today.

References Benjamin, Ruha (2024) Imagination: A Manifesto.

WW Norton and Co. Calliope from Zabat by Maud Sulter. Estate of Maud Sulter. All rights reserved, DACS / Artimage (2022).

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THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH: BLACK FEMICIDE

BLACK WOMEN IN LONDON ARE CONFRONTED WITH AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH: DESPITE THE ALARMING RATES OF GENDERBASED VIOLENCE GLOBALLY, THEY REPRESENT THE ETHNIC GROUP WITH THE HIGHEST FEMICIDE RATES IN THE UK. THIS TRAGEDY REQUIRES A RE-EVALUATION OF THE SYSTEMS IN PLACE TO PROTECT BLACK WOMEN AND RAISES URGENT QUESTIONS ABOUT WHY BLACK WOMEN ARE DISPROPORTIONATELY SUBJECTED TO SUCH EXTREME LEVELS OF ABUSE.

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AfroManifesto The Unspoken Truth: Black Femicide — Maya Brookes

Westend61 / Jacob Lund Photography

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Femicide is an issue that requires our immediate attention, as women around the world continue to fight the sexist societies that allow them to be subject to such violence and abuse that escalates to a tragic end.

Femicide is an issue that requires our immediate attention, as women around the world continue to fight the sexist societies that allow them to be subject to such violence and abuse that escalates to a tragic end. Defined by the UN as “an intentional killing with a gender-related motivation, femicide may be driven by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls, unequal power relations between women and men, or harmful social norms”.

In the UK, out of the 13 femicide victims recorded in 2023, eight were Black (62%), a troubling increase from 2022 where out of the 21 femicide victims nine (43%) were Black.

These statistics present an unsettling reality given that Black people only make up around 4% of the population. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the situation of genderbased violence. Lockdown measures, intended to curb the spread of the virus, inadvertently trapped individuals in private spaces, intensifying the rate of domestic violence incidents. One of the most common cases of violence against women is intimate partner violence which, as defined by Women Worldwide, includes physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse and controlling behaviours by a current or ex-partner.

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said Sadiq Khan has invested £163m as part of his public health approach to tackle violence against women and girls. This includes targeted funding to support community organisations working with women and girls from Black, Asian and minority-ethnic communities and other minoritised groups, including the LGBTQ+ community. However, with rates of femicide and domestic abuse still at disproportionally high levels within the Black community, more needs to be done to support and protect those who are victim to this epidemic.

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AfroManifesto The Unspoken Truth: Black Femicide — Maya Brookes

An in-depth look at the stereotypes and perceptions surrounding Black women can shed light on why they are frequent targets. The “strong Black woman” stereotype has a detrimental impact on their treatment. From a young age they are taught to resist in times of struggle, to be fearless and to live up to the ideal of being a strong Black woman.

However, this stereotype, reinforced within the Black community itself, often results in their suffering and pain being neglected. Pain is seen as a sign of weakness, leading many to feel they cannot speak out and must instead remain strong and learn to move on. Research undertaken by Sistah Space, a domestic abuse charity advocating for Black women, highlighted that in the UK 86% of women of African and/ or Caribbean heritage have either been a victim of domestic abuse or know a family member who has been assaulted.

Yet, only 57% of victims said they would report the abuse to the police. These statistics show the lack of trust towards the police due to historical institutional racism. Fearful that nothing will change or, worse yet, they will just be met with further disrespect, Black women feel they cannot seek help.

The adultification of Black children is another harmful prejudice that Black children of all genders are subject to. Perceived as less innocent, the adultification bias has grave consequences in criminal cases, neglecting the fact they are children and are still developing both physically and emotionally. This is particularly harmful to Black girls who are perceived to be more emotionally strong, more mature and consequently more knowledgeable about sex. The hyper-sexualisation of Black girls results in them becoming targets of sexual assault and harassment from a younger age. A report undertaken by the University of York highlights the ways in which mixed-race, Black and Asian girls are disproportionately likely to be subject to harmful and threatening behaviour, and consequently the specific challenges they face in reporting it to authorities. This issue was highlighted with the case of Child Q in 2020. A 15-yearold Black girl was wrongly accused of possessing drugs and strip-searched by Met police officers while on her period, without any other adult present. This gross misconduct and abuse of power underscores the urgent need for a serious reassessment of how Black women and girls are treated.

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Several charities are paving the path towards change. Sistah Space led a campaign calling for mandatory training for police and agencies supporting Black women who are victims of domestic abuse. The campaign, named Valerie’s Law, after Valerie Forde and her 23-month-old daughter who were brutally murdered by Valerie’s ex-partner Roland Mckoy in 2014, calls for police to be better trained to recognise the signs of domestic abuse among Black women. These women are at increased risk of being left with their abusers after police are called to the scene. The campaign has garnered support from several advocates, including FKA twigs, the British artist who filed a civil lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf. FKA twigs, of Jamaican, Spanish and English descent, hoped that by speaking out about her abusive relationship she could help raise awareness of intimate partner violence. Acting as the voiceover for the campaign video, she is joined by actors such as Megan Cusack from “Call the Midwife” and Leah Harvey from Apple TV’s series “Foundation.” The video highlights cases where police failed to notice signs of physical injuries, which can be less obvious on darker skin, underscoring the negligence towards Black women by law enforcement. Also, Valerie’s Law calls for “mandatory cultural competency training that accounts for the cultural nuances and barriers, colloquialisms, languages and customs that make up the diverse Black community” to ensure that the specific needs of Black women are met to better protect them from their abusers.

It is a chilling reality that Black women face. Despite years of reforms and changes in law, the safety of Black women is still not considered a priority. It is imperative that governmental bodies acknowledge the urgent necessity for enhanced protection measures and actively dismantle damaging stereotypes ingrained within the attitudes of those entrusted with supporting and safeguarding domestic abuse victims.

Our community must step up and take proactive steps to eradicate these stereotypes and commit unequivocally to ending domestic abuse and femicide among Black women.

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References BBC, 2024. Black women in London face higher femicide rates. [Online]. Available at: https://www. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0xxgn82yv7o.amp [Accessed 28 June 2024].

Carlos, M., 2024. FKA Twigs opens up her abusive relationship with Shia LaBeouf. [Online]. Available at: https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/ a35460385/fka-twigs-shia-la-beouf-abuse/ [Accessed 28 June 2024].

Davies, C., 2022. Child Q: four Met police officers facing investigation over strip-search. [Online].

Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/ uk-news/2022/jun/15/child-q-four-met-policeofficers-facing-investigation-over-strip-search [Accessed 28 June 2024].

GOV.UK, 2022. Population of England and Wales.

[Online]. Available at: https://www.ethnicity-factsfigures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/ national-and-regional-populations/population-ofengland-and-wales/latest/#main-facts-and-figures [Accessed 28 June 2024].

Sistah Space, 2024. Supporting African & Caribbean Heritage Women Affected By Domestic & Sexual Abuse. [Online]. Available at: https://www. sistahspace.org [Accessed 28 June 2024].

Univeristy of York, 2023. Report reveals extent of public sexual harassment experienced by Black and minoritised girls in the UK. [Online]. Available at: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2023/ research/harassment-black-minoritised-girls/ [Accessed 28 June 2024].

UN Women, 2023. Five essential facts to know about femicide. [Online]. Available at: https://www. unwomen.org/en/news-stories/feature-story/2022/11/ five-essential-facts-to-know-about-femicide [Accessed 28 June 2024].

Womankind Worldwide, 2024. INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE. [Online]. Available at: https:// www.womankind.org.uk/intimate-partnerviolence/#:~:text=Intimate%20partner%20 violence%20(IPV)%20(,a%20current%20or%20 ex%2Dpartner [Accessed 28 June 2024].

AfroManifesto The Unspoken Truth: Black Femicide — Maya Brookes

A woman from the Young Women’s Freedom Center attending a rally in San Francisco, USA (2019). Credit: Shelly Rivoli / Alamy Live News.

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PLACE AND SPACE 118

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Place and Space

What does it mean to claim, create and care for spaces? This section examines the changemakers taking ownership of spaces, whether it is the oceans around South Africa or an abandoned garage block in London. The contributors also ask us to consider the biases that have resulted in hostile architecture and its impact on Black women and how by changing the gaze we can create and imagine places of equity, safety and sustainability.

Claiming Space — Jamie J Thompson Water is Political — Zandile Ndhlovu Black Females in Architecture / Socially Responsible Design — Selasi Setufe Black Women in Architecture and Design: Pioneering Change and Innovation — Tara Gbolade Building Stronger Communities — Nicholas Okwulu

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CLAIMING SPACE WHEN YOU ENTER THE WORDS “CLAIMING SPACE” INTO YOUR SEARCH ENGINE, YOU WILL FIND THAT THIS TERM IS WHOLLY ATTACHED TO THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT. ARTICLES, BOOKS AND PODCAST LINKS THAT PROMISE TO ENLIGHTEN US ON THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN TAKING UP SPACE IN VARIOUS ASPECTS OF OUR EXPERIENCE. THIS PLIGHT THAT HAS BEEN SPOKEN FROM DISSERTATION DEFENCES TO VIRAL MEMES ON SOCIAL MEDIA, CHAMPIONED BY WOMEN, HAS ALSO BEEN ECHOED BY OTHER MARGINALISED GROUPS.

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Place and Space Claiming Space — Jamie J Thompson

Descendants of enslaved Africans, LGBTQIA+ community, immigrants, and any group of people being marginalised, must contend with the challenge of being seen, considered and respected in the place they wish to belong. For me, as a Caribbean man that defied many odds to pursue an education and career in the US, that is what I infinitely desire: to be seen for who I am, to be included because of consideration, and to coexist in spaces governed by mutual respect. I am a man whose pronouns are he, him and his, and I have been attempting to solve the labyrinthian challenge of claiming space for the past two decades.

My offering is not a prescription, but a testimony of how taking up space requires us first to be full in ourselves. In retrospect, my experience with the taking up space through my journey happened in three stages: learning and owning my inner space, listening to understand outer space, and assimilating authentically.

Jamie J Thompson.

– LEARNING AND OWNING INNER SPACE Before we can claim space, it is important that we recognise what and where the spaces are and what their value will be in our lives. For me, this happened at an early age. The place that I felt like I belonged: anywhere that had anything to do with the arts, especially dance. The place that I didn’t belong on a basketball court, or any other sport (except for a friendly game of baseball - if you don’t pitch from too far).

The contrast between these two spaces provided me with the prerequisite course to claiming space - knowing myself.

Naturally, I gravitated towards the things that I was good at and stayed away from the things that I couldn’t find joy in.

As I continued to choose spaces that resonated with me, I grew clearer in who I was. I was creative, naturally eloquent, displayed strong traits for leadership and found home in drama club, dance club and marching band. I instinctively planted myself in those spaces and, as a result, I developed a keen sense of my inner space. From those deepening roots, sprung my pursuit of my passions in the arts, education and leadership. A pursuit that soaked up all that my home space had to offer me. Rumi penned, “you have no need to travel anywhere. Journey within yourself, enter a mine of rubies and bathe in the splendour of your own light.” The travel within had helped me greatly, but what happens when our journey within is manifested in such a way that your pursuit has more fuel than the space has mileage? Rumi’s encouraging words inspire us to explore our inner world and that idea has been echoed across many theories of religion and consciousness. That practice prepares us to take up space, but sometimes those flickering light of rubies serves and a lighthouse that beckons us to new spaces.

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– LEARNING TO UNDERSTAND OUTER SPACE

– ASSIMILATING AUTHENTICALLY

Growth requires movement. Movement takes up new space. Growth often requires us to move to new spaces. In my case, my desire for more growth led me to migrating to the USA. As I got off the plane in January 2007, my teeming mind flickered with ruby rays of memories - like a montage of core memories from my journey within, set to a polyrhythmic orchestration of drums and steel pan that produced a calypsonian delight. The sweet and familiar sound screeched as the piercing winter wind cut through my linen pants and shirt. And just like that, I had my first lesson of the new space; I wasn’t in Belize anymore. I recall scurrying from the jet bridge to the terminal at the airport in Jackson Mississippi on that cold winter night. Chuckling at myself, I whispered to myself again, “you are not in Belize anymore.” The next time I encountered those words, they would not be from the comfort of my humour. They were spewed from the lips of a dance professor, whose encounter with my ownership of inner space, my ruby rays, arrested the better parts of his intellect and perhaps challenged his personal ownership of his inner self. “What are you doing?

You are not in Belize!” He said as he walked towards me to correct a mistake I made. The look on the faces of my classmates signaled telepathic thoughts of support, but on the inside, I was unmoved by his flamboyant demonstration of disdain. I received the correction and made sure not to make the same mistake again. That evening, I stayed in the studio until the security guards made their closing rounds.

A little frustrated by his comment, I practiced, repeatedly and successfully. Walking back to my dorm, accompanied by the newly acquainted winter breeze, I realised what he meant: my role in this new space was to learn, understand, and develop a professional level command of the information given. My inner world was mine to respect and its place value was no longer centre stage, but with the right perspective, it could be the pillars that would support my pursuits in this new space. Throughout my time as a student at the predominantly white and Christian university, I unlocked a new level of the game of taking up space. I learned that each space has its own characteristics.

Learning to understand those characteristics has equipped me with the tools to decide whether this space is good for me or not. It has also furnished me with a unique opportunity to reconcile the known of my inner world, with the new information from the space I dared to claim.

Staying late in the dance studios during my college experience allowed me to reconcile what I knew and owned about me, with the new information and characteristics of the space. The easier outcome would have been to make a trade. To change. To conform in a way that may be scored on a Eurocentric grading scheme. Instead, I experimented with the position of not negotiating my inner space to accommodate the new, but to develop myself in a way that they both can coexist. I did not trade my Caribbean movement and psychological sensibilities for a linear and codified way of moving and thinking, I absorbed them both.

At that time, I did not know what the absorption would yield but, instinctively, I knew that I had the capacity to learn new ideas that would prepare me to take up new spaces.

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The outcomes of my decision to absorb the new space, without sacrificing my inner world were beyond what I could have ever imagined. In my body I developed an excellent command of multiple dance styles that allowed the pleasure of a versatile career. From Asadata Dafora’s Awassa Astrige (1934) to the Nutcracker Prince, and the contemporary greats in between, such as Alvin Ailey, Garth Fagan, Diane McIntyre, and Christopher Huggins. Whether in a contemporary modern dance company, a classical ballet company or in a Broadway musical, I have consistently taken up space in a way that promoted both cultural pride and economic success.

My reflection of my journey through various spaces is uniquely mine, recognising that the nuances and success of claiming space, irrespective of our demographic, begins with us knowing who we are and where we want to go. How we take up space and claim new ones is a journey that begins on the inside and not only at the onset of resistance. Owning our inner selves, with an understanding of what the outer space gives, makes us an impermeable force that can takes up any space, or make new ones.

Place and Space Claiming Space — Jamie J Thompson

Before we can claim space, it is important that we recognise what and where the spaces are and what their value will be in our lives.

Diane McIntyre. Photographer Colemanphotography.

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WATER IS POLITICAL THE OCEAN IS POLITICAL. POLITICAL BECAUSE ACCESS TO IT, HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN EQUAL, VARIOUS OPPRESSIVE TECHNIQUES WERE PUT IN PLACE TO ENSURE WHATEVER NARRATIVES EXISTED PRE-COLONIAL TIMES WERE ERASED, NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN, AND THE ONLY NARRATIVE WE WOULD KNOW WAS THAT OF OUR SEPARATION FROM WATER, AND SO, WHETHER WE SPEAK OF SOUTH AFRICA’S SHORES THAT SAW OUR COMMUNITIES BE DISPLACED FROM THEIR OCEAN FACING HOMES, JAIL TIME IF YOU WERE AT A ‘WHITES ONLY’ BEACH, OR THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE WHERE BLACK LIVES WERE LOST IN TRANSIT UNDER COLONIAL AMBITIONS, AND PERHAPS WITH WATERS EVEN CLOSER TO US LIKE POOLS IN THE USA, WHERE ACID AND BLEACH WAS THROWN IN TO GET PEOPLE OUT OF THE WATER, TO BE CLEAR, BLACK PEOPLE OUT THE WATER, I GO ON TO EXPAND TO SAY, ALL BODIES OF WATER ARE POLITICAL. Where we find ourselves today regarding water culture in Black communities is not by mistake but by design.

My journey since finding the ocean has included a lot of practical work in The Black Mermaid Foundation - our focus on creating access to ocean spaces, resources for exploration, education with intent to see more racial diversity in South Africa across all ocean-facing spheres (recreational, in sport and in careers), has been witnessing the touch of our internal narratives, internal referencing the home space. We, in South Africa, grew up being told of snakes that lived in the water, deep seas being an ancestral space and thus not everyone could be there, and then of course, the water women, mermaids, that were known to be quite dangerous. There was this, and externally, the narratives outside of our home was a cultural understanding or ‘agreement’ of Black people not being water people.

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Place and Space Water is Political — Zandile Ndhlovu

Zandile Ndhlovu. Photographer James Doughty.

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The trouble with this in my journey was strangers would see me in the water and utter words that infer of the oddity it is to see me here because Black people aren’t water people, or Black people can’t swim, the boldness of this statement is never lost on me because very few people can complete the why - when I pleasantly ask “oh, do you know why that is?” this is the essence of Chimamanda Ngozi’s danger of a single story, that we can’t talk about the danger of a single story without talking about power. Power is not only the ability to tell the story of another person but to make it the definitive story of that person. The single story creates stereotypes, it is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete, they make one story the ‘only story’, but this is no less in my own community, where phrases of “ but she’s not Black Black” would swirl. Hurtful too, because there seemed to be a sliding scale in the world of what Blackness was, and activities that remove you from your Blackness from both sides, and in this shame is the title of being a ‘coconut’, or someone forcing entry into “white people things”, a layered theme on its own, a denial of all the worlds that are ours too.

I introduce this term because this is needed in the ocean space too, and its two fold, the work in The Black Mermaid Foundation is to create access while providing resources for Black communities to access the water in hope to build a relationship with the water, a connection, that allows us to write new narratives around who belongs in the water; while expanding the needed representation is one, but there’s the second part, that requires us, Black people, to let go of limiting beliefs, however old and serrated into our culture that they are.

Our history is critical in how we show up in the world, and so, to waters that have seen our pain, swallowed our last breath, made home for our bodies at her depths while our families mourned, and from the surface, witnessed us cross oceans bonded in pain, bound in chains, she witnessed us be taken from our people and when we arrived at new ports, from the shore she witnessed us lose our names, our mother tongue, our traditions, our food, our hair only to take on colonial names and become ledger items.

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History is important, but this separation from bodies of water is dangerous, because it has created a divide between us and the divine, it has made us question worlds we have always known, lived with and been stewards in - the role of being good guardians to our earth, on land and at sea. In one word, conservationists. We have always lived side by side with nature, neither above the other, simply witnessing her abundance in provision for us while we tended to her care.

My grandmother speaks of the healing properties of water, how ocean water cleanses, and the fear that nature doesn’t communicate with us anymore because we have become monsters, defiling holy places, not taking care of the gifts she gives us. As the seas rise due to warming temperatures, fish stocks collapsing at sea, droughts and floods, there has never been a more important time for the great remembering to come to light. Our voices, our advocacy - holding our leaders accountable while educating our communities.

How we protect our oceans today is our action toward ensuring better tomorrows for the generations to come - a baking planet devoid of food and fresh water sources is not it, nor climates that have become so volatile the only language they know is fleeing to lands that seem most stable for today.

Future generations cannot start at the fringes of the endless gambles we took over their futures in a span of a century.

My primary show up to the climate change discussion has always been quite selfish, it has become charged by knowing that our people cannot be robbed of their last breath under wild waters again. Selfish, you ask? Knowing that the most vulnerable communities would see the worst effects of climate change, from droughts, floods, food insecurity and rising seas, it is us that would see the worst of it, and so - how do we save us? Continentally and globally? First worlds have had the privilege to pillage our oceans, our lands, our people, and the hard truth of this whole story is, it is us that will see the worst of it, accounting for atrocities we are yet to benefit from, I dream of connection, healing, and these beautiful waters witnessing our joy, because Black joy in the water is a rebellion of all the worlds that tried to separate us from her, it is a reclaiming of our birth right, and a remembering of who we were, before we lost our names, our mother tongue, our traditions, our food, our hair.

Our efforts are not only for her, the oceans, but they are ultimately for us.

Place and Space Water is Political — Zandile Ndhlovu

My grandmother speaks of the healing properties of water, how ocean water cleanses, and the fear that nature doesn’t communicate with us anymore because we have become monsters, defiling holy places, not taking care of the gifts she gives us.

Zandile Ndhlovu. Photographer Craig Kolesky.

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BLACK FEMALES IN ARCHITECTURE/ SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE DESIGN THE TERM ‘BUILT ENVIRONMENT’ REFERS TO THE HUMAN-MADE SURROUNDINGS THAT PROVIDE THE SETTING FOR WHERE WE LIVE, WORK, PLAY AND SOCIALISE. IN AN INCREASINGLY URBANISED WORLD, THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT IS DEEPLY INTERTWINED WITH EVERY ASPECT OF OUR EXISTENCE, INFLUENCING OUR DAILY ROUTINES, HEALTH, WELL-BEING, AND OVERALL QUALITY OF LIFE. GIVEN THE COMPLEX INTERPLAY OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL FACTORS, THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT SIGNIFICANTLY SHAPES THE FABRIC OF COMMUNITIES AND SOCIETIES.

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Place and Space Black Females in Architecture/Socially Responsible Design — Selasi Setufe

Parks, public spaces, streets, transport infrastructure, offices, homes, schools, community centres, shops, supermarkets, etc., the built environment is not just about physical structures or buildings; it’s about the spaces and places where all aspects of human life unfold. The built environment isn’t static; it evolves and adapts based on societal needs, technological advancements and cultural shifts.

Understanding its impact on our lives is crucial for designing sustainable, inclusive and vibrant communities. But how do we achieve this if the people who plan, design and construct our built environments do not reflect the people that live and work in them? I am a Black British woman of Ghanaian heritage and I am an architect. Black women represent 0.4% of the UK’s architecture profession (Architects Today Analysis of the Architects’ Profession in 2022, 2023) and this is a similar statistic across other disciplines.

I began my architectural education at the University of Portsmouth in 2009; however. the first time I met an architect who was a Black woman was in 2017. This encounter with Elsie Owusu OBE was a pivotal moment in my career as it affirmed a desire to challenge the status quo and set in motion an urge to advocate for a more equitable, diverse and sustainable built environment achieved through the exploration of alternative modes of practice.

Although architecture, engineering and other spatial practices have existed in many corners of the world for thousands of years, these disciplines are primarily taught through western educational systems and institutions. In these contexts there is little room to explore the creative, theoretical or physical manifestations of our diverse cultures.

Still from A Voice for the 450 Plus - Black Females in Architecture’s contribution to La Biennale di Venezia (2023).

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As a woman navigating the dualities of Black Britishess, the intersectional nature of my experiences informs how I occupy everyday spaces. So much of my experience of Black culture is about gathering of family and community, our beliefs, food, our music and so much more. In most instances the spaces and buildings available in the British context aren’t designed with our experiences or needs in mind - so we work with what we’ve got. We often transform and adapt spaces to meet our cultural needs. Familiar everyday examples include the use of school halls for anything from church services to ‘hall parties’ of various kinds. Even in the rare instances when spaces are designed for us or by us, this happens within the constraints of western influence and aspiration - resulting in a form of code switching and suppression of cultural expression.

Have you ever stopped to consider how well the everyday spaces you use work for you?

Are resources to develop our built environments being distributed equitably? Who gets a say over what happens in our neighbourhoods?

Do the streets and public spaces available to you work well for you? Are they uplifting or oppressive? Are they clean and well maintained? Do they provide you the freedom to live out and express your culture? What is your walk to and from home like? Do you feel safe?

Do the spaces in your home, place of work or place of learning work well and meet your needs?

Some of these questions can be resolved by challenging social norms and through design while the answers to many of these questions demand that we address spatial and social injustices that require more radical and political interventions. The role of women in shaping the built environment is essential to assuring equitable, resilient, accessible and inclusive spaces.

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In the 1980s, London-based feminist architects’ practice, Matrix, was one of the first worldwide to foreground issues of gender in the design of the built environment. Matrix was a non-hierarchical collective of female architects, designers, builders and activists.

As a women-led platform interrogating intersectional and interdisciplinary ways of working, Matrix was radical. Their work was conducted through theory and practice. Originally published in 1984, their book, Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment, provided a critique of the patriarchal built environment both in the home and in public space and outlined alternative forms of practice that are still relevant today. Matrix also worked on several design projects where emphasis was placed designing building projects for and with women and co-exploring new building types ignored by a male-dominated profession.

Projects included community buildings, social housing and cooperative housing and women’s centres, most notably the Jagonari Women’s Educational Centre in Whitechapel, London (1987). The work Matrix did was pioneering and I strongly believe this was as a result of the diversity of the knowledge, professional expertise and lived experience of its members. The lack of visibility until recent years of the women of colour involved in the collective including Gozi Wamuo and Ann de Graft-Johnson is evidence that more needs to be done to amplify the voices of Black women within the built environment.

Black women as actors of change have a critical role to play to ensure the barriers experienced by women when navigating the city, our neighbourhoods and spaces in general can be addressed in the making of future built environments.

There are several examples of Black women as leaders within the built environment today, and it’s an honour to highlight some of them under BlackInk magazine’s theme of Black British Women: Invisible Power.

Place and Space Black Females in Architecture/Socially Responsible Design — Selasi Setufe

So much of my experience of Black culture is about gathering of family and community, our beliefs, food, our music and so much more.

Selasi Setufe MBE at The Black Girl Festival (2023).

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Gbolade Design Studio is a London based architectural studio founded by Tara and Lanre Gbolade. They work closely with existing communities to draw-out unique and place-based solutions. An example of this approach can be seen in the design of their Graham Park project where safety was a key concern for the existing community. which has a high proportion of women as well as children under 16 years old. In addition, Somali, Arabic and Tamil are the most common languages other than English spoken by nearly two thirds of children in the wider community. In response to these insights, the public realm was designed with clear sights of vision from the south to the north of the site and incorporates space for shared community activities.

The architecture facade is chamfered to maximise natural surveillance while still retaining privacy between dwellings.

Black Females in Architecture (BFA) is a social enterprise and membership network founded to connect and support Black women within the architecture, design and construction industry. With a current global membership of over 500 Black women, BFA was founded in 2018 and is codirected by Akua Danso, Neba Sere and myself, Selasi Setufe MBE.

Space Black is a creative studio of Black built-environment professionals imagining alternative spatial futures for marginalised communities. They are interested in the under-represented and under-resourced ideas that have been neglected due to the profession’s lack of diversity.

Space Black looks to explore these beyond the dimension of traditional practice, and instead amongst communities, young people and designers outside the built environment.

The creative studio is driven by a vision for a future in the built environment that steps up to its social and ecological responsibility.

This year, BFA is embarking on its first self-initiated research project. Our primary research methodology is centred around ‘Sankofa’, a principle derived from the Akan people of Ghana. an understanding that one should remember the past to make positive progress in the future. Titled ‘ma’ - a term of endearment and respect used to refer to matriarchs in the African context, the research title also plays on the academic abbreviation for a ‘Master of Arts’.

DECOSM is a London based collective working to decolonise city making. Their work involves the codevelopment of tools to explore how to decolonise and diversify city-making in education, practice, and the places we live; DECOSM brings together spatial practitioners and people from all walks of life to nurture this collective process.

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Through networking, advocacy, education and projects we serve our members, the industry and wider society, ensuring the contribution of Black women to the built environment is recognised and valued. In an increasingly globalised society, BFA seeks to challenge a solely Western understanding of the built environment towards a more equitable approach to city making.

BFA’s aim is to evolve, fine-tune and replicate this project over the coming years and, through the process, model an ethical and sustainable design practice led by Black women that champions social and environmental value in every output. Our research will therefore seek out environmentally, socially and economically sustainable practices that can be implemented in the cities and urban contexts that define everyday lives.

Place and Space Black Females in Architecture/Socially Responsible Design — Selasi Setufe

Black women as actors of change have a critical role to play to ensure the barriers experienced by women when navigating the city, our neighbourhoods and spaces in general can be addressed in the making of future built environments.

Lesley Lokko OBE is a Ghanaian-Scottish architect, educator and author. She is a truly inspirational woman, aptly described by the current Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) president, Muyiwa Oki, as ‘a visionary agent of change’ and ‘a humble revolutionary force’.

She is a well accomplished author and was notably the editor of White Papers Black Marks, a collection of essays exploring the subject of architectural space and culture through the lens of race, rigorously examining the expression of racial ideologies in the built environment.

Lesley Lokko is the founder of the African Futures Institute (AFI), a new groundbreaking institute of architecture and the built environment, headquartered on the African continent but with truly global reach.

Developed through an understanding of the urgent need to think and educate differently, AFI facilitates a space that is simultaneously physical and digital, bringing together the best minds under one roof to explore diverse, radical and genuinely inclusive ways to tackle some of the world’s most pressing and difficult challenges.

Lesley Lokko’s contributions to architecture and the built environment are exceptional, and in recognition of this she has been the recipient of many awards and honours. Most recently, she became the first African woman to receive the prestigious Royal Gold Medal from the Royal British Institute of Architects (RIBA) since it was established in 1848.

Whether through detailed everyday design solutions such as the positioning of windows on a building facade or farreaching radical pedagogy, I find hope in the work of the Black women highlighted in this article and many others who are my peers, role models and mentors. These incredible women operate through unconventional practices to support the underrepresented and provide alternatives to conforming tropes of ableism, heteronormativity and white supremacy.

Lesley Lokko was the curator of the 18th International Architecture Biennale in Venice, which explored decarbonisation and decolonisation through the lens of Africa. Titled ‘A Laboratory of the Future’ the 2023 Venice Biennale was an incredible moment of fostering connections with artists, creatives and spatial thinkers from the African diaspora and world-wide. This was not only the first time the internationally recognised event was curated by a Black woman but it was also the first time Africa and Black culture had been centred in this context.

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Brixton Dominoes Club. Photographer Kimi Gill.

Place and Space Black Women in Architecture and Design: Pioneering Change and Innovation — Tara Gbolade

BLACK WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN: PIONEERING CHANGE AND INNOVATION THE LANDSCAPE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN IS CONTINUALLY EVOLVING, AND ONE OF THE MOST DYNAMIC ASPECTS OF THIS EVOLUTION IS THE INCREASING INFLUENCE OF BLACK WOMEN PRACTITIONERS. THESE WOMEN ARE NOT ONLY BREAKING BARRIERS IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN BUT ARE ALSO LEADING THE CHARGE IN ACTIVISM AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, PROFOUNDLY SHAPING THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY. THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TRANSCEND TRADITIONAL BOUNDARIES, WEAVING THEMES OF SUSTAINABILITY, CULTURAL IDENTITY, ACTIVISM, AND INCLUSIVITY INTO A VIBRANT TAPESTRY OF INNOVATION AND RESILIENCE.

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– INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY AND SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

– CELEBRATING CULTURAL IDENTITY AND HERITAGE

A unifying theme in the work of trailblazing Black women in architecture and design is the seamless integration of sustainability with social consciousness. This intersection is epitomised by the late Wangari Maathai, whose Green Belt Movement demonstrated how environmental initiatives could simultaneously empower women and conserve nature. Inspired by Maathai, practitioners like myself, have embraced the ethos of creating spaces that serve both ecological and social purposes – I’ll never forget the powerful speech this Nobel laureate gave at the RIBA Headquarters in London while I was still a student – she urged us to never stop dreaming that our ideas could change the world – I took her words personally.

I have always found great joy in the work of Black female architects who bring a unique perspective that celebrates cultural identity and heritage. Miriam Kamara’s work is a testament to this; her practice, Studio Issoufou Architects, prioritises locally and contextually responsive designs. Her projects, such as the HIKMA, inspired by the architecture of the Hausa Kingdoms, often address the specific climatic, cultural and social contexts of the regions she works in, creating spaces that are both functional and culturally resonant. The HIKMA democratises the concept of the mosque, making it inclusive and transforming it into a centre for the community. Her work exemplifies how architecture can respond to and enhance local contexts, fostering a sense of place and community, while also of course expressing beauty and poetry.

As a result, at my practice Gbolade Design Studio, our projects are guided by the principles of sustainable and regenerative design, ensuring that our built environment minimise environmental impact while enhancing community well-being. Our practice has therefore committed to designing and developing net zero projects that enhance the health and wellbeing of residents who occupy these spaces – ensuring they experience ‘joy’ and ‘delight’ as they move through the spaces that we create.

Mikaela Loach’s activism further emphasises this theme.

In her body of work on social media and her book “It’s Not That Radical,” she argues for urgent climate action that addresses both environmental and social injustices.

Loach’s work challenges architects to rethink their role in the climate movement, advocating for designs that reduce carbon footprints and promote equity. This dual focus on decarbonisation and decolonisation is essential for creating a truly sustainable future.

– CHALLENGING NORMS AND PUSHING BOUNDARIES And it is precisely these two themes, decarbonisation and decolonisation, that Lesley Lokko, the curator of the eighteenth Venice Biennale in 2023 (the first Black woman to do so), used to revolutionise the international stage - by focusing on the contributions of African and Diaspora architects. Her curation provided a platform for underrepresented voices, challenging the predominantly Western narratives in architectural discourse. Alongside her body of work, including her extensive teaching and founding the Graduate School of Architecture in Johannesburg, Lokko’s work at the Biennale is a powerful example of how inclusive representation can reshape global architectural dialogues – and precisely why she won the RIBA’s Royal Gold Medal in 2024 (again, the first Black woman to do so).

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Tosin Oshinowo’s work is equally inspiring, as she infuses contemporary African design language with traditional motifs and local materials. Based in Nigeria, Tosin was curator of the Sharjah Biennale in 2024. Her studio’s (Studio Oshinowo) projects, like the Maryland Mall in Lagos, serve as bridges between past and present, fostering a sense of community and continuity. Oshinowo’s designs remind us that architecture can honour and celebrate cultural heritage whilst embracing modernity.

Similarly, London-based Nana Biamah-Ofosu’s contributions to the 2023 Venice Biennale with the V&A Museum highlighted the rich architectural traditions of the African continent. Her work challenges Eurocentric perspectives, advocating for a more inclusive understanding of global architectural history. By amplifying African architectural narratives, Biamah-Ofosu emphasises the importance of representation and diversity in architectural discourse.

Place and Space Black Women in Architecture and Design: Pioneering Change and Innovation — Tara Gbolade

– COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND CO-DESIGN A profound commitment to community engagement and codesign is another hallmark of Black women in architecture.

Stephanie Edwards of Urban Symbiotics exemplifies this approach, working closely with communities to create spaces that reflect their needs and aspirations. Her practice’s projects, such as the Dagenham Heathway project included an extensive engagement process including business interviews, pop-up stalls and street conversations, to develop a co-curated vision and regeneration framework for a part of Barking and Dagenham that will be regenerated. Her work demonstrates the transformative power of participatory design. By involving stakeholders in the design process, Urban Symbiotics ensures that the resulting spaces are not only functional but also deeply meaningful to the people who use them.

By learning from their intersectional approaches, I strongly believe that wider society can better address the pressing challenges of our time and create a more just and sustainable future.

– LEARNING FROM INTERSECTIONALITY This spirit of challenging the status quo is shared by all the practitioners highlighted here. Our work collectively advocates for a more inclusive and equitable architectural practice, demonstrating that diversity and innovation go hand in hand. By pushing boundaries and breaking barriers, Black women are redefining what architecture can and should be.

The intersectionality of Black women offers invaluable lessons for the industry, especially in addressing the dual challenges of decarbonisation and decolonisation. By integrating their unique perspectives, these practitioners offer holistic solutions that consider environmental sustainability alongside social equity and economic independence. Our work emphasises the necessity of designing spaces that not only reduce carbon footprints but also dismantle colonial legacies and promote cultural representation.

– CONCLUSION The boldness and audacity of Black women in architecture is evident in our willingness to challenge norms and push boundaries. The contributions of Black women in architecture and design are vast and varied, encompassing design innovation, activism, cultural celebration, and community engagement. As we celebrate their achievements, we are reminded of the power of architecture to effect positive change in the world. By learning from their intersectional approaches, I strongly believe that wider society can better address the pressing challenges of our time and create a more just and sustainable future.

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BUILDING STRONGER COMMUNITIES 138

Place and Space Building Stronger Communities — Nicholas Okwulu

I AM A COMMUNITY ENABLER BASED IN THE LONDON BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK. OVER THE YEARS I HAVE DELIVERED A NUMBER OF PROJECTS, FROM DANCE PROGRAMMES TO BIKE PROJECTS AND T-SHIRT PRINTING. I AM PARTICULARLY PASSIONATE ABOUT COMMUNITY PROJECTS THAT BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER AND RECENT SUCCESS STORIES INCLUDE THE BIG LUNCH WITH THE EDEN PROJECT, AND SOUTHWARK UNTOLD WITH TATE EXCHANGE, WHICH SHOWCASED UNDER-REPRESENTED CREATIVE PRODUCERS BASED WITHIN SOUTHWARK THROUGH A WEEK OF WORKSHOPS, DISCUSSIONS, EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES. THROUGHOUT THE DELIVERY OF THESE PROJECTS, I HAD NOTICED THAT WE DID NOT HAVE A SPACE THAT WE COULD CALL OUR OWN. LEX Consultation. Photographer Alexander Christie.

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When I heard young people complaining about the lack of space, we had somewhere to offer them. Our space was different, a little bit of brutalist architecture, peeling paint and a rustic feel.

It gave it a characteristic look that people who know the space, could recognise it straight away.

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Inside LEX2.

Place and Space Building Stronger Communities — Nicholas Okwulu

I had my eyes set on the garages underneath one of the local tower blocks and the ambition to transform them into workshops, studios and multidisciplinary spaces that would support skill development, training and cultural programmes.

When I approached local councillors, they agreed that the community needed a space and in 2015 I was introduced to the Head of Properties and Housing. I submitted a business plan and after some fraught negotiation caused by a roof in significant need of repair, the council accepted my proposal to convert the 65 garages into a multi-faceted community hub. By 2016 we had a plan, a local architect and a campaign to raise funding (with supporters including donations, Airbnb and the Mayor of London).

Then on 14 June 2017, the Grenfell Tower fire happened.

Alongside the loss of 72 lives, and the grief and outrage that swept through London’s diverse communities, we also had to address the logistical issue. The tower blocks surrounding us had been built with a similar panel cladding and insulation system as Grenfell, putting us at risk. Our project was put on pause.

In 2021 we handed in our planning application which was approved in 2022 and work started that year as we had everything in place to commence work. In 2023, the keys were handed over and we soft launched the space in August. We were awarded £900,000 from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to complete the second phase of the project which is where we are right now but we are utilising the creative space whilst we develop further. We are working with local residents to build capacity in our community that is undergoing major regeneration and lots of talk about social value and co-production. There is still a lot of work to do, but as the Founder and Director of Pempeople and The Livesey Exchange, I am proud of what we have achieved to date and the many outcomes that have come out of our projects, and especially as they are driven and delivered by the community.

I would really like to say a big thank you to Wendy Cummins, Founder of Radiate Festival and Livesey Exchange who shares the same desire of seeing communities thrive and who has helped shaped the realisation of LEX2.

We went back to the drawing board and then Southwark Council suggested that there was a piece of land not too far from the garages that we could use. We accepted this and started the whole process over again, submitting planning, procurement procedures and consultations. We ran these from our pop-up shop on Peckham High Street, where we championed local residents. Then in 2020, whilst facing a global pandemic, Southwark council took back the keys for the pop-up shop.

We had to keep moving forward. I found a temporary shared space to continue working and went back to the garages, which I still had the lease for. I realised that we could support young local creatives whilst navigating the two metre social distancing rules. We began offering several creatives and local residents the opportunity to be able to run their projects. Everyone from actors to music producers, bike mechanics, architects and undergraduates were there and it created a real community vibe. Young creatives with low budgets used the space as a film set, we hosted exhibitions and platformed local creatives in the garages. When I heard young people complaining about the lack of space, we had somewhere to offer them. Our space was different, a little bit of brutalist architecture, peeling paint and a rustic feel. It gave it a characteristic look that people who know the space, could recognise it straight away.

The garages birthed many projects such as the Southwark design district and we supported many other creatives to start their project in our space.

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BLACKINK NEW WRITING COMPETITIO

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BlackInk New Writing Competition

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The BlackInk New Writing competition returns for its fifth edition. Led by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage and Writing East Midlands, the competition seeks to support Black writers of short fiction. The judging panel was Pawlet Brookes and Cara Thompson.

For this edition we are delighted to publish the two winners of 2024. Cara Thompson commended “all the entries for their vulnerability, empowerment, and rich insight into the nuances of Black women’s experiences across the Diaspora. They were a pleasure to read and all worthy of celebration.”

Mek Sense — Aphra Le Levier-Bennett Hush Child! — Michelle Mother Hubbard

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MEK SENSE - TASTE

THE SKY WOKE UP WEEPING, SO IT WAS THE PERFECT TIME FOR AN ELONGATED TEA-MAKING RITUAL. HER FINGERS DANCED IN A WAVE-LIKE MOTION AS SHE HOVERED OVER HER SELECTION OF MUGS, RESPECTING THAT THE CUP IN WHICH THE TEA WAS HELD WOULD AFFECT THE OVERALL DRINKING EXPERIENCE. A SMALL TEACUP WITH DELICATE GOLD ENGRAVINGS IN THE SHAPE OF ROSES CALLED TO HER, ALONGSIDE ITS SMALL PLATE. AS SHE RAN HER HAND OVER THE CURVE OF THE HANDLE, A WAVE OF NOSTALGIA WASHED OVER HER FACE. SHE LET HERSELF BASK IN IT, THE WAY ONE MIGHT IN A RAY OF SUNLIGHT.

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BlackInk New Writing Competition Mek Sense — Aphra Le Levier-Bennett

She disappeared into the expanse of the ocean for a moment. The cold sensation of the water covered her head, and she welcomed it, keeping her eyes open.

The simmer of boiling water in the kettle reached a peak before settling, signalling that the desirable temperature had been met. A small turn to her right greeted her with an audience of herbal teas. Peppermint? Rooibos? Lemon and ginger? She went for a rose tea, a child-like giddiness revealing itself on her face with the revelation of a smile.

The tea escaped from its paper packaging as she ripped it open, exuding a subtle smell of dried roses. Before she knew it, the tea bag was being raised to her face as she savoured the aroma diffusing from it. Satisfied, she dropped it into her mug. The kettle looked like it was cooling down, the tender smoke billowing out of its nostrils. Slowly, she lifted it and submerged the tea bag in boiling water, revelling in its changing colour from clear to an ever-deepening light pink. She put the kettle down and raised her mug, vowing to herself that she would not have it until she had sat down in her most comfortable chair.

As she lifted the mug to her mouth, the rose smell became more potent, and she wished she could distil it into a perfume. Her hands slightly warmed up as they cupped the bottom of the mug, mimicking a small and tender hug. At last, the first sip of the tea hit her lips before its beautiful taste made its way down to her stomach. Releasing a breath, she put the tea down, staring outside her window and wondering what it would be like if the rain also tasted like her tea. She picked her cup up again and drank.

– TOUCH The tea was simply a warmup for the Big Event. A trip to the sea where she would submerge her body and awaken her body cells. She had ingested water, and it was time to return the favour. The solitary tea bag sat in the mug as she finished her last sip. She placed the mug in the sink to be washed later because life was too short to worry about that sort of thing.

She’d recently bought a new cap that would ensure her dreadlocks were completely covered, its stretchiness allowing breathing space for the strands that had been grown over years of her life. A soft hair band tied her hair into an immaculate bun and she packed her bright yellow trusty goggles, moisturiser, perfume, some eyeliner and lip-gloss. She felt something tug at her ear and realised one of her locks had somehow found a home next to one of her many piercings, so she gently pried it out and tucked the lock behind her ear to join the rest.

Although the sky had woken up in a mood, she wore a long dress and knee-high sandals that would protect her along with her umbrella. One last look at the lonely mug and she stepped outside.

The sea was a ten-minute walk away and she nodded at a few people on her way, still not quite used to the fact that people acknowledged each other on the street. Growing up in a larger-than-life city had lulled her into acting like strangers were non-existent despite being surrounded by them. Ammunition was held in the eyes, so you mustn’t look at people for fear of firing. But here, next to the sea, where even on a rainy day like today, the water still felt warm on your skin as it sunk into your pores, she felt herself ease into this change.

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A few bubbles danced in front of her and after a small smile to herself, she decided it was time to come back up. Finally, her first breath of the day had been released.

As she had predicted, the rain stopped once she had arrived at the sea, her umbrella now becoming a mere memory. In one fell swoop, she removed her dress which revealed her bright red swimming costume, putting her cap and goggles on and leaving her bag in its usual resting place. The waves spoke to her in a teasing manner by coming closer and then further away. A bird flew above her, and she followed its call to freedom, submerging her feet, legs, chest, and eventually whole body into the cleansing water.

She disappeared into the expanse of the ocean for a moment.

The cold sensation of the water covered her head, and she welcomed it, keeping her eyes open. A few bubbles danced in front of her and after a small smile to herself, she decided it was time to come back up. Finally, her first breath of the day had been released.

– SOUND Although it was early in the morning, she heard the murmuration of reggae penetrating the air, it’s calming bassline supporting her back as she lay in a starfish position in the water, floating so that her body looked like it was offering itself to the sky and the sun who had shyly decided to make an appearance. Closing her eyes, she tried to see whether she could listen to the water, its ebbing and flowing and perhaps any small and curious fish. The sound of the reggae music increased, and she realised that she felt its vibrations through the water, the lyrics of the song being muffled but sonorous, nonetheless.

Opening her eyes briefly, she spotted three little birds flying in unison, as if in some deep choreography that nature herself had planned out. She smiled, careful not to open her mouth for fear that she would unexpectedly swallow some water.

Peace and stillness called to her, so she closed her eyes again.

Floating in water gave her the sensation that she was flying.

The wind tenderly caressed her face and she bathed in its care for what could have been minutes, seconds or hours.

This position invited her body into a restful sleep, allowing her mind’s eye to travel beyond the ocean and the land, even past the sky. It was like she was being lifted by a natural mystic in the air. Euphoria was the best way to describe the sensation flowing through her body, the blood at home in her skin communicating with the flow of the ocean, her skin fitting onto her skeleton perfectly, not one piece amiss.

One drop. Two drops. As if her face became the surface of a drum, the returning rainwater moulded into hands, creating a silent symphony which woke her out of her stupor. The reggae music seemed to get louder too, and she slowly turned her face to the right and noticed tourists entering the gate from afar.

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BlackInk New Writing Competition Mek Sense — Aphra Le Levier-Bennett

Opening her eyes briefly, she spotted three little birds flying in unison, as if in some deep choreography that nature herself had planned out.

– SIGHT

– SMELL

She always chose the area of the beach that was most secluded and on days when she came later to watch the sunset, she felt like she was on the edge of the Earth.

Sometimes, when no one was watching, she swam as far out as she could, giving herself a moment or two to recapture her natal breath. Then, as if she were a sea detective, she would swim right to the bottom of the seabed, feeling the pressure increase but not being scared by it, instead embracing it as if she was being held from her head to her toes. Once her hand would reach the sand at the bottom, she’d run it along the grains, causing a few to dissipate into the water like ink.

Using the strength that she had built up with each swim, she would lower her body as much as she could, hand still running across the sand in search of a rope. Some days, she expected it to be thin and golden, like a strand of hair. On other days, she searched for something thicker that would be easier to hold in her hand and would not take as long to reveal itself. This idea came into her head one day as she had watched the sun set as if the sea was swallowing it like a delectable meal that should be slowly savoured and indulged. Her imagination had gotten the better of her and she’d decided that in fact, there was a rope hidden in the ocean that pulled the sun into it, causing it to disappear for night, only released when the sun woke up. She knew it was a childish game but the idea of being able to reach the sun through the sea was irresistible. Inevitably, she’d swim back to the shore catching nothing more than a seashell, but she nurtured it nonetheless, her body instantly drying from the sun she had tried to catch a mere moment ago.

A freshwater smell hit her nostrils and she knew the showers were nearby. She rinsed off the sea water, moisturised her body and face that had been sun kissed into a deeper brown, applying the eyeliner and lip gloss alongside the perfume. A new dress revealed itself in her bag as she prepared to go back out to a world where the rain had ceased again. A grumble protruded out of her stomach, and she took that as a cue to walk to the centre of the town, the smell of cocoa bread and patty causing her to salivate. She picked some up as she made her way home, nodding again at those around her.

The mango tree on her porch called to her, as one had fallen to the ground and after being moulded by her fingers, declared itself ripe to eat. She walked to her front door, unlocked it, and let the breeze welcome her in.

Looking around now, she spotted a few coconut trees and the occasional sailor far out into the water. Having reached land again, she picked up her towel and walked further out until she did not hear the music and instead the soundtrack that permanently held the island. It was a cricket sound interspersed with a bird-like harmony. Her days had been painted with those sounds and her nights had been soothed by it too.

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HUSH CHILD! DON’T QUASH THE CHILD THAT TALKS TOO MUCH! AN ACTIVE BRAIN WITH A MILLION ELECTRONS FIRING AT THE SAME TIME: EACH ONE A SHIMMERING SPARKLING STRAND OF MAGIC! AN INSTINCTIVE LOVE FOR LINGUISTICS, PASSED DOWN FROM ANCESTORS THAT HAD TO SWAP THEIR BEAUTIFUL TONGUES FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S TONGUES WHICH NEVER DID FIT. TONGUES THAT ONCE GOT CUT OUT, BUT GREW BACK PERFECTLY FIVE GENERATIONS LATER. BRAVE AND BOLD AND EXPRESSIVE AND FINETUNED TO SERVE WORDS PROUDLY.

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BlackInk New Writing Competition Hush Child! — Michelle Mother Hubbard

Don’t quash the child that talks too much! An active brain with a million electrons firing at the same time: each one a shimmering sparkling strand of magic! An instinctive love for linguistics, passed down from ancestors that had to swap their beautiful tongues for someone else’s tongues which never did fit. Tongues that once got cut out, but grew back perfectly five generations later. Brave and bold and expressive and fine-tuned to serve words proudly.

Each shush and hush snaps a strand, dulls it, and ties it up into a hangman’s noose.

I look back at that enthusiastic word-loving seven-year-old me, bombarded with unimaginative adults that struck me down with: Motor-mouth. Grass hopper brain. No focus.

Lacks concentration. Talks too much. Chatter-box. GabbyAggy. Gift-of-the-gab. Hush. Shut up. Be silent. Be quiet.

Stop yacking. Stop talking. Stop squawking. Give it a break will you!

I can’t explain the level of frustration and confusion and anger and heartbreak it gave me hearing the constant nonverbal Shhhh! … with a straight finger pressed up against thin pursed angry lips, and a hard side-eyed stare in my direction from the (head)master.

But words were my super-power, my magic, my uncontrollable invisible friends. Friends that didn’t want to get me into trouble, but did.

Poems, rhymes, hymns, jokes, limericks, songs, conversations, reflections, running commentary, prayers, and other things, all fizzing out of me, constantly, like a shaken bottle of expensive celebratory champagne.

Hold your tongue!

School reports snorted “She chats too much, easily distracted, distracts others, dreamer” … “she has the gift of the gab!” … Yes, I had! … still do! Words were my power. Words are my power. Audible not visible. My magic. Not a bad habit.

Invisible but audible. I wished I could have caught them (back then) as they escaped, with a butterfly net, and pinned them down onto paper canvas. But my pages were blank.

Invisible stories wrote with invisible ink that I could hear and see in my mind.

Scatter brain? … No! … Multi-thinker. Multi-track magnificent mind. Skip, mix, playback and rewind. My invisible power.

The verbal pages in my mind were loaded! I could hear and see and touch and smell each and every one of them.

Problem was, I couldn’t catch or control or tame or train or contain any of them!

It’s not that I wasn’t concentrating. In fact, I was concentrating… on all of them, all at once. These beautiful words, phrases, stories, genetic memories, inherited dreams, all brightly coloured and enthralling like juggling balls, spinning plates, helium balloons, Kente cloth, traditional costumes. A magical colourful carnival. Invisible to everyone but me. So, of course I had to speak of what I could see, to set them free! The curator, the orator, the griot in me.

I reached out to grab handfuls of this magic and give voice to it. The breeze teased me with a negro spiritual song it begged me to share. Rose petals had veins like scars from whips that I could read and translate. They begged me to be their interpreter. The ocean held shells to my ear so I could hear the whisper of my middle-passage great-greatgrandparents.

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I can’t explain the level of frustration and confusion and anger and heartbreak it gave me hearing the constant non-verbal Shhhh! … with a straight finger pressed up against thin pursed angry lips, and a hard side-eyed stare in my direction from the (head)master.

But words were my super-power, my magic, my uncontrollable invisible friends. Friends that didn’t want to get me into trouble, but did.

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BlackInk New Writing Competition Hush Child! — Michelle Mother Hubbard

Warm generational words passed down secretly through breast, calabash, dutchy, continue to nurture the tongues that don’t belong in silence. I pen them onto paper, like tattoos onto elderly paper-thin skin, and pray they won’t return to dust and all too quickly blow away. It’s my Black-girl-magic.

My invisible power!

Eventually I realised no one else could feel these words but me. I had a responsibility to give voice to the invisible. It’s my superpower.

Smoke alarms pour out hypnotic cleansing healing words to cast out the cursed and unwanted. Metal pipe cloud burst water-sprinklers sing a Fred Astaire medley that Ginger Rogers would melt for, as Arawak Indians dance a barefoot trance giving thanks that the rains came.

Clouds peep in through classroom windows and tell jokes about hot plump teachers trying to drain the creativity out of brown skinned children. “What do you call a hot plump angry teacher?” … ‘Nothing. You’re too busy holding tightly onto the tongue your ancestors died for’.

The adult me has worked hard trying to tame train and focus my inner child’s voice. I admit it, I take biros without asking, from desks, people, workshops when butterfly words try to escape and I have to poke them with a pen and pin them down onto parchment paper. Quick. Before they’re gone.

I talk in my sleep. I never catch those ones.

I’d return the pens happily if I could remember where I ‘acquired’ them from.

Most people don’t recognise the value of a biro anyway.

Don’t see them as a tool for pinning down and catching words that would otherwise be stolen and enslaved and renamed by some false owner.

Warm generational words passed down secretly through breast, calabash, dutchy, continue to nurture the tongues that don’t belong in silence. I pen them onto paper, like tattoos onto elderly paper-thin skin, and pray they won’t return to dust and all too quickly blow away. It’s my Blackgirl-magic. My invisible power!

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100 BLACK WOMEN WHO HAVE MADE A MARK 152

Spotlight 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark

PORTRAITURE IS ONE OF THE OLDEST GENRES IN ART. FROM THE HYPER-REALISTIC TO THE IDEALISED, THE CONSISTENCY AMONGST PORTRAITS IS THAT THEY WERE USUALLY COMMISSIONED BY, AND THUS ULTIMATELY DEPICT, THOSE OF WEALTH, POWER AND STATUS. AS A RESULT OF HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES, THE COLLECTIONS OF MAJOR UK ARTS INSTITUTIONS ARE A CULTURAL DESERT WHEN IT COMES TO THE REPRESENTATION OF BLACK SITTERS AND ARTISTS. AT THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, IN A COLLECTION OF OVER 215,000 PORTRAITS, THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY 3,000 UNKNOWN AND 1.413 KNOWN SITTERS BUNDLED TOGETHER INTO THE “BLACK, ASIAN AND MINORITY ETHNIC SITTERS” GROUP. WHEN EXAMINING ART COLLECTIONS NATIONALLY, ART UK LISTS 31,037 ARTWORKS AS PORTRAITS. 8,815 OF THESE PORTRAITS ARE TAGGED AS WOMEN. JUST 114 ARE TAGGED AS BLACK WOMEN. 153

100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark seeks to redress the erasure of Black women from portraiture in the UK. Led by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, the project centres around an exhibition featuring the portraits of 100 Black women with connections to Britain and Ireland, curated by Pawlet Brookes, with artwork by visual artists Valerie Asiimwe Amani, Yvadney Davis, Gayle Ebose, Grace Lee and Lauryn Pinard. The cover image, by Patricia Vester, encompasses the spirit of the project and everyone who has been a part of the journey.

Collectively, the portraits celebrate Black women who have made a significant positive change across a diverse range of sectors including activism, arts, education, politics, science and technology. The portraits each bring a different aesthetic, encapsulating the tenacity, leadership and invisible power of Black womanhood. Sitting alongside the exhibition there is a series of podcasts, providing an opportunity for each woman (or those who knew her) to tell her story.

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Consequently, BlackInk Issue 5 features five different cover sleeves to celebrate the work of the five different portrait artists and also five years of the magazine. Each cover features two posthumous portraits, recognising the trailblazing women who have paved the way and on whose shoulders we stand.

The 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark exhibition runs from 1 October 2024 – 4 January 2025 at Leicester Gallery with an exhibition catalogue of all the portraits available to purchase. The podcast series is available on all major podcasting platforms. In due course, the portraits will be available to view as part of Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage’s Living Archive, alongside a documentary film providing an insight into the creative process and heritage research.

Portraits are so much more than just the depiction of a person’s likeness. They are an essential contribution to recording the cultural, societal and political context of the times and creating a legacy for the future.

Spotlight 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark

Portraits are so much more than just the depiction of a person’s likeness. They are an essential contribution to recording the cultural, societal and political context of the times and creating a legacy for the future.

– IN NUMBERS 100

Black Women Who Have Made A Mark

100

Portraits of Black Women

5

Portrait Artists

10 +

artistic mediums including textile design, photography, glass painting, sketching, sculpture, watercolour, acrylics, collage, digital art and mixed media.

27

Posthumous Sitters

73

Living Sitters

761

nominations

Geographical connections of sitters across the British Isles: 2 2 5 6 85

Ireland Northern Ireland Wales Scotland England

The fields in which the 100 Black Women Who Have Made Their Mark (these are not mutually exclusive, so the total is greater than 100): 27 2 2 3 4 2 5 5 12 9 9 6 5 6 3 6 5 3

Activists and Community Leaders Architectural Innovators Religious Leaders Business Forerunners Education Trailblazers Environmental Activists Health Care Reformers Historians and Heritage Professionals Careers connected to Politics and Law Singers and Musicians across genres Television and Theatre Creatives Dancers and Choreographers Multidisciplinary Artistic Practitioners Writers and Journalists Visual Artists Carnival Queens Fashion Trend Setters Sporting Pioneers

References artuk.org. (n.d.). Art UK | Discover Artworks. [online] Available at: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/2024--terms:blackwoman. Accessed: 29 June 2024 Morgan, M. (2022). The visible invisibility of Black people in aristocratic portraiture | Art UK. [online] artuk.org. Available at: https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-visible-invisibility-of-blackpeople-in-aristocratic-portraiture. Accessed: 29 June 2024 National Portrait Gallery. (2024) People & Portraits National Portrait Gallery. [online] Available at: https://www. npg.org.uk/collections/search/group/1345?_gl=1*1e4ljui*_ up*MQ..*_ga*NjgyODQ1NzU4LjE3MTk2OTM2MzM.*_ ga_3D53N72CHJ*MTcxOTY5MzYzMi4xLjAuMTcxOTY5MzYzMi4wLjAuMA. Accessed: 29 June 2024

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2024 IN NUMBERS 66

80%

114

24%

Black Women professors in the UK1

portraits in national collections depict Black women2

3

the number of times Black women are more likely to die in childbirth3

25%

the gender pay gap for Black Caribbean women4

17.3%

Black students got a first-class degree.

62.7% got a 2.1 degree5 156

of people from Black ethnic groups engaged in the arts regularly6

people from Black ethnic groups volunteer at least once a month7

4.8%

honours recipients in the New Year Honours 2024 were people from Black ethnic groups8

86%

people from Black ethnic groups feel they “strongly belong to Britain”9

2024 In Numbers

Footnotes 1.

There are 210 Black professors and a total of 23,515 professors in the UK.

5.

Sanyal, D. et al (2024) 100 Black Women Professors NOW Impact Report. Women’s Higher Education Network.

2.

Although not a definitive record as figures are provided through open source contribution, this figure demonstrated the dearth of portraits where the central figure is from the African or African Caribbean Diaspora. Of 8,815 portraits on Art UK tagged as women, only 114 are tagged as Black women. In total, 31,037 of 311,489 artworks listed on Art UK have the keyword ‘portrait’.

Higher Education Statistics Agency (2023) Undergraduate Degree Results. Available at: https://ethnicity-facts-figures. service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/higher-education/ undergraduate-degree-results/latest/ (Accessed 11 June 2024) 6.

Art UK (2024) Discover Artworks. Available at: https://artuk.org/ discover/artworks/search/2024--terms:black-woman (Accessed 11 June 2024) 3.

The maternal death rate for women from Black ethnic backgrounds has decreased slightly from the rate in 2019-21 but still remains three times higher when compared to women from white British backgrounds. Overall, maternal death rates have increased.

4. Compared to white British men. When compared to white British women, this figure is 10.6%. Overall, men earn more than women in most ethnicity groups with the exception of Black Caribbean and ‘Other’ Black heritage groups. In these two groups, women only earned marginally more than men, and less than men in other ethnic groups.

Overall at 89% of people engaged in the arts at least once in the last year. A lower-than-average percentage of people (49%) from Black ethnic groups visited a museum or gallery.

Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2024) Participation in the arts, culture and heritage. Available at: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/culture-and-community/culture-and-heritage/taking-part-in-the-arts-culture-and-heritage/ latest/ (Accessed 11 June 2024)

7.

University of Oxford (2024) Maternal death rates in the UK have increased to levels not seen for almost 20 years | University of Oxford. [online] Available at: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/202401-11-maternal-death-rates-uk-have-increased-levels-not-seenalmost-20-years-0. (Accessed 11 June 2024) 4.

Students from the mixed (48.7%) and ‘other’ (47.6%) ethnic groups were the most likely out of all ethnic groups to get an upper second class (2:1) degree. In the last 8 years, the percentage of Black students getting a first class or 2:1 degree increased from 50.8% to 62.7% and from 77.1% to 83.7% for white students.

This is the highest level of engagement of any ethnic group, compared to 23% of people from white ethnic groups and 15% of people from Asian ethnic groups.

Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2023) Volunteering Available at: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov. uk/culture-and-community/civic-participation/volunteering/ latest/#by-ethnicity (Accessed 11 June 2024)

8.

Ville, L. (2024) Double Trouble: The Ethnicity Gender Pay Gap. Fawcett Society. Available at: https://www.fawcettsociety.org. uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=db2a690e-c6b2-4c9d-b9ea39e36cdc7e70 (Accessed 11 June 2024)

In the New Year Honours List 2024, 87.2% of honours recipients were white, 5.3% of honours recipients were Asian, 4.8% were Black, 1.6% had mixed ethnicity and 1.1% were from the ‘other’ ethnic groups. Out of all types of honour, MBE honours had the highest percentage of recipients (7.2%) from Black ethnic groups.

Cabinet Office (2024) Honours Recipients. Available at: https:// www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/culture-andcommunity/civic-participation/honours-recipients/latest/#byethnicity-and-type-of-honour (Accessed 11 June 2024)

9.

86% of people from Black ethnic groups aged 16 and over in England said they felt strongly that they belong to Britain – the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups.

Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2023) Community Life Survey. Available at: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service. gov.uk/culture-and-community/community/community-andbelonging/latest/#by-ethnicity-feeling-of-belonging-to-britain (Accessed 11 June 2024)

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CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS 2025

158

Date

Event

Location

20 January

Martin Luther King Jr Day

USA

24 January

World Day for African and Afrodescendant Culture

Worldwide

20 - 27 January

International Conference and Festival of Blacks in Dance

Memphis, Tennessee

February

Black History Month

USA

3 February

Heroes Day

Mozambique

28 February – 8 March

Carnival

Trinidad, Brazil

8 March

International Women’s Day

Worldwide

11 March

Moshoeshoe Day

Lesotho

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 – 18 May

Let’s Dance International Frontiers

Leicester, UK

30 April

International Jazz Day

Worldwide

5 May

African World Heritage Day

Across Africa

21 May

Afro-Colombian Day (Día de la Afrocolombianidad)

Colombia

21 May

World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

Worldwide

June

Afro Nation 2025

Portimão, Portugal

1 June

Madaraka Day

Kenya

16 June

International Day of the African Child

Worldwide

19 June

Juneteenth

USA

22 June

Windrush Day

UK

Calendar Highlights 2025

Date

Event

Location

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

3 July

Unity Day

Zambia

18 July

Nelson Mandela International Day

Worldwide

1 August Emancipation Day

Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts 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

24 August

Notting Hill Carnival

London, UK

October

Black History Month

UK

3 – 8 November

Digital BlackCentric Week

Leicester, UK

11 – 12 November

Black Heritage Voices

Leicester, UK

20 November

Black Consciousness Day (Dia da Consciência Negra)

Brazil

2 December

Abolition of Slavery Day

Worldwide

10 December

Human Rights Day

South Africa

26 December – 1 January

Kwanzaa

USA

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COMING SOON Books The Race To Be Myself Caste Semenya Published: July 2024 Publisher: Penguin, Merky Books

Time Cleaves Itself Jeda Pearl Published: July 2024 Publisher: Peepal Tree Press

Olympic and World Champion, Caster Semenya finally shares the story of her extraordinary life and her battle to compete on her own terms. Labelled ‘different’ and banned from the sport she loved, Olympic and World Champion Caster Semenya shares the revealing and blisteringly honest story of how the world came to know her name and place her at the centre of a debate about gender in sports which still continues today.

In Jeda Pearl’s debut poetry collection, landscapes and bodyscapes are brought into focus through lenses of race, illness, disability and womanhood.

Ancestral languages of Scots, Patois, Geordie and English critique ableism, colonialism and Scottish exceptionalism; they ask ‘Who gets the trees?’, honour Caribbean and Scottish heritages. Here, lyrical acts of observation unfold with defiance, tenderness, rhythm and the occasional side-eye. The accordion of time stretches across poems that deliver a sonic meditation on memory, grief, belonging, empathy and resilience.

Told with defiance and speed, The Race To Be Myself is a journey through innocence, ambition, obstacles and acceptance. From her rural beginnings running in the dust, to crushing her opponents on the track. To the falsehoods spread about her name, and the many trials she has been forced to endure publicly and privately.

This is Caster’s time to set the record straight and share her story of how she became a defiant champion.

Woman Like Me Diane Abbott Published: September 2024 Publisher: Penguin, Viking From challenging expectations as a bright and restless child of the Windrush generation to making history as the first elected Black female MP in the UK, Diane Abbott has seen it all. A Woman Like Me takes readers through Abbott’s incredible journey, painting a vivid picture of growing up in 1960s North London with her working-class Jamaican parents, before entering the hallowed halls of Cambridge University to study history. Ever since the day she first walked through the House of Commons as the first Black woman MP, she has been a fearless and vocal champion for the causes that have made Britain what it is today, whether it’s increasing access to education for Black children and speaking out against the Iraq war or advocating tirelessly for refugees and immigrants.

160

Coming Soon

Monster Dzifa Benson Published: October 2024 Publisher: Bloodaxe Books

Eight Weeks Baroness Lola Young Published: November 2024 Publisher: Penguin, Fig Tree

Monster is a bold and lyrical exploration of the Black female body as a site of oppression and resistance. At its heart is a study of the world of Sarah Baartman, aka the Hottentot Venus, a Khoikhoi woman from South Africa who was displayed in freak shows in nineteenth century Europe. Baartman’s voice is framed within the social, political and legal structures of the day, offering a unique perspective.

Lola Young has been an actress, an academic, an activist and a crossbench peer. But from the age of eight weeks to eighteen years, she was moved between foster care placements and children’s homes. It would take many decades before she was able to make sense of her childhood.

Other poems draw clear parallels with Benson’s own experience as a Black woman born in London but raised in Ghana who returned to the UK at the age of 18. The collection is an exciting mix of vivid lyricism, sometimes laced with dark humour, using complex poetry, monologue and theatrical devices.

The influence of Shakespeare sits comfortably with references to Ewe mythology and history in a collection of wide scope and depth. This is a highly accomplished first collection by a mature voice. One of a small group of published Black women poets, Benson makes an important contribution to current British poetry with the publication of Monster.

In her poignant and inspiring memoir, she pieces together her own remarkable life story, using fragments of memory, her care records, and her imagination where parts of her story are missing. As she revisits her childhood in north London, she also provides glimpses into her life as a peer, activist, and campaigner - and tells the story of her attempts to reconnect with her roots in later adulthood.

A moving and beautifully written account of being a child in care and a Black child in a white family, Eight Weeks is also a vital part of contemporary Black British history.

161

162

Zanele Muholi Qiniso, The Sails, Durban 2019 © Zanele Muholi Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson, New York

Coming Soon

Exhibitions 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark 1 October 2024 – 4 January 2025 Leicester Gallery, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK A collective exhibition featuring the portraits of 100 Black women, created by five visual artists.

100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark seeks to make the hidden histories of Black women visible and to celebrate Black women, past and present and their contribution to life in Britain and Ireland.

100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark offers a reflection of women across a range of professions and occupations who are deserving of recognition, whether they are a familiar face on stage or screen, a pioneer in research breakthroughs, or have worked quietly behind the scenes to make a positive change to their community.

Rukus! Black Queer Legacies 10 October 2024 – 19 January 2025 Somerset House Curated by artist and filmmaker Topher Campbell, the exhibition is a chance to see items from the award-winning rukus! archive (currently housed at the London Metropolitan Archives), including material showcasing the activism, artistic events and private lives of Black Queer Britain’s’, work from UK Black Queer pioneers from the 1970’s until the present day, newly commissioned work and pieces from the ‘first out generation’ who have created greater visibility for the Black LGBTQ+ Diaspora.

AKAA – Also Known As Africa 18 – 20 October 2024 Carreau du Temple, Paris, France AKAA – Also Known As Africa – the first and main contemporary art fair centred on Africa in France, reflects a multifaceted Africa, which transcends borders and whose voices resonate in the four corners of the world, carried by the vision of each artist. For its ninth edition, AKAA continues to highlight the conversations that Africa is having with the Americas and the Caribbean, particularly through a spotlight on the overseas scene. Carte blanche to guest artists and curators will carry the voice of these bustling artistic scenes in Overseas France.

ZANELE MUHOLI Until 26 January 2025 Tate Modern, London, UK Zanele Muholi is one of the most acclaimed photographers working today, and their work has been exhibited all over the world. With over 260 photographs, this exhibition presents the full breadth of their career to date. A visual activist, from the early 2000s, they have documented and celebrated the lives of South Africa’s Black lesbian, gay, trans, queer and intersex communities.

Abi Morocco Photos: Spirit of Lagos 1 November 2024 – 29 March 2025 Autograph, London, UK Coming to Autograph this autumn: the first exhibition unearthing the story of Abi Morocco Photos, one of the most vibrant photographic studios operating in Lagos, Nigeria. Run by husband-and-wife duo John Abe and Funmilayo Abe from the 1970s to 2006, the studio became known for their versatility and dynamic portraiture, popular for many people around Lagos wanting to capture a variety of moments in their lives.

163

The Interview

BARONESS LOLA YOUNG

164

Baroness Lola Young and Pawlet Brookes MBE. Photographer Georgina Payne.

The Interview Baroness Lola Young — Interview By Pawlet Brookes

We talk about saving the planet. The planet will survive in some form or another. It is us and other creatures that will suffer from our profligate use of resources, and from the disrespectful, to say the least, way in which we treat other people.

– CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR EARLY ACADEMIC CAREER IN CULTURAL STUDIES? The cultural studies degree I did in 1986. It was so analytical; it was so wide ranging. I was able to look at the kinds of things that related to me that is popular culture; it was not only about high culture, but it was combined with this very sort of rich, theoretical and academic research and thinking and debate and discussion. It just came at exactly the right time; I needed a bit more intellectual stimulus.

– IN WHAT WAY DO YOU THINK YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICES AND POLITICAL WORK ASSIST EACH OTHER?

– SO BEFORE YOU STARTED YOUR PARLIAMENTARY CAREER AS A LIFE PEER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS, YOU STARTED AS AN ACTRESS. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR CREATIVITY JOURNEY? When I first started acting, I got very involved with the actor’s union, Equity, and that was a real source of political education for me. I learned about the kinds of arguments and debates and campaigns that people were trying to get across around what we would call now diverse and inclusive casting. It was very much a kind of mixture of having my creative impulses satisfied. But at the same time being politically active and campaigning.

There is the political, there is the theoretical, there is the research, there is the academic, there is also the practical and the practice, and the policy. All of those different things kind of come together. To me now, it is unthinkable the idea that I would try and split all those different things up, because they are all part and parcel of the same thing. If I am looking at a particular subject, whether that’s about children in the care system, or whether that’s to do with people who’ve been badly treated by commercial organisations, I am also thinking how can the creative field contribute to these kinds of discussions and debates? How can people who want to articulate how they have been treated badly do so using the arts? And that is political. To me, the whole creative and cultural sphere is about how it is awesome, what would be the right word, it’s to do with how all of those different aspects come together and create a whole because then you understand more of the whole picture rather than a little bit of it.

165

Be open. It is important to be open to ideas, be open to achieving the things you want to achieve in a different way to what you originally thought.

– IN RECENT YEARS, WE’VE SEEN THE GROWING INTEREST FROM NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS TO PROPERLY PRESERVE BLACK HISTORY MONTH, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON DECOLONISATION AND THE IMPLICATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE? The idea of a Black History Month, cultural and social history is a really, really important one. It’s not just an idea, it’s a reality. Because I think until we understand how the past has shaped where we are today, we’re doomed to repeat some of the mistakes that have been made in the past. Certainly, that idea of, “look at me, I am the first person; I am the first Black person ever to do this”. Then, somebody says, “well, actually, did you not realise that so and so did this thousands of years ago?” I think therefore that history is incredibly important. For me, again, because I am interested in arts and culture, in terms of Black arts, whether that’s performing arts, visual arts, cinematic arts, or whatever, I am sure there is still so much more to be learned about that. So, the idea of decolonisation, the word kind of sends shivers up some people’s spines, they really cannot hack the idea of that. I say, “calm down, do not be frightened”. It is not about throwing out history, as some people have characterised it. Neither is it about saying that that history is wrong. It’s about saying, “Oh, look, if you think of history as a big, big tapestry, there’s lots of threads that are missing from it. If you want to get the whole picture, you need to get all of those sides into the picture.”

Decolonising to me is saying there is not only one powerful version that’s been written by powerful people into the history books. That is a part of the history, and certainly the way they’ve treated history is really important to analyse that.

But at the same time, it’s a positive thing. It’s a constructive contribution towards trying to understand how we got to the place where we are today.

166

– YOU’VE BEEN AN ADVOCATE FOR BLACK WOMEN AND LED COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE ARTS, EDUCATION AND THE POLITICAL SECTOR. HOW DO YOU HOPE TO CONTINUE TO USE YOUR PLATFORM TO EMPOWER THESE VOICES? It is hard to think about being in a position of relative power. I cannot deny, you know, for a lot of people, as soon as you stick Baroness in front of your name, you’re immediately a member of the establishment. I will not deny that I have that power or that platform. But by the same token, that burden of representation can be quite heavy.

If something comes into my inbox and I already have 15 things to do in the next month, how can I fit that in? If everybody tries to do a little bit, then obviously it spreads the load. It can be quite difficult for Black people and for Black women, maybe even more. It can be kind of a very big responsibility. I don’t want to say burden, because that makes it sound a terrible thing to have to bear. It is a difficult thing to have to bear. But it is a responsibility and an accountability, which I think is important.

The Interview Baroness Lola Young — Interview By Pawlet Brookes

Baroness Lola Young and Pawlet Brookes MBE. Photographer Georgina Payne.

167

– IN 2023, YOU INTRODUCED A PROPOSAL FOR THE COMMERCIAL ORGANISATIONS AND PUBLIC AUTHORITIES BILL TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS, WHICH INSTIGATES LEGISLATION TO A PLACE OF DUTY ON COMMERCIAL ORGANISATIONS AND PUBLIC AUTHORITIES TO PREVENT HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE AND ENVIRONMENTAL HARM. FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN TRACKING ITS PURPOSE, COULD YOU SHARE WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT INSPIRED YOUR SPONSORSHIP OF THE BILL? I have just introduced my third private member’s bill into the House of Lords. The idea of a private member’s bill is very interesting one; it allows members of the House of Lords, who are not in government and who are not shadow members of the shadow government, to bring forth a piece of legislation. I am sponsoring the bill, which is sponsored in turn by Anti-Slavery International, of which I am a patron.

My involvement with Anti-Slavery International came about because I got interested in this concept of modern slavery.

Although the term itself is a little bit difficult, especially in consideration of the transatlantic slave trade, there is a huge issue about Black people around the world who are at the forefront of having their labour exploited, not being paid properly and sometimes facing physical abuse. Child labour also is a big issue, as well as environmental harms, which have had a deep impact on countries in the Global South.

We had the Modern Slavery Act in 2015. That has been in law for nearly ten years now, however, it is a bit dated, other jurisdictions have brought forth much more stringent and robust legislation. What we aim to do with this bill is to say that commercial entities and public authorities must do the utmost to prevent these harms from happening in their supply chains, that is to prevent environmental harms and to prevent human rights abuses. Frankly, if I’m going into a shop to buy something to wear or something to eat, I do not want to have to think if it is possibly killing somebody or killing a river somewhere in Latin America or if the minerals in my phone were excavated by children in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I want to have trustworthy businesses that I know that have done their best to ensure that these things are not happening in their supply chains. That is what the bill aims to do. The stages that we go through are long and a bit complicated, but now, we’re at the stage where we are just gathering support, and very quietly, but eventually, quite loudly, we’ll be fronting a campaign. The government will support at least the principles of this bill and make sure that both commercial organisations and public authorities are fully aware of their responsibilities and know what they need to do to prevent those harms happening.

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– YOU ARE RELEASING YOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHY LATER THIS YEAR. WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE THAT YOU NEEDED TO WRITE YOUR STORY? I found it quite a difficult concept, this idea of writing a memoir or an autobiography because it seemed to be a little bit narcissistic. I did have to be persuaded to do it. I think that is partly because of the kind of life that I have. One of my friends introduces me and says, “this is Lola, she was brought up in foster care and now she’s in the House of Lords.”

People immediately go, “that sounds interesting”. Of course, it is to other people, but when you have lived it yourself, it’s just your story. It would be disingenuous of me to say I did not think it was something exceptional. I look around the House of Lords, and I do not see many people from my background in any sense. But then other people kept saying, well, your experience in the care system needs to be told, not just as a personal story, but as a story from which we can extrapolate what the failures are in the system. In fact, some things have gotten worse, in terms of the care system and what happens to children and young people who’ve been through that.

– IF YOU COULD GIVE ADVICE TO YOUR YOUNGER SELF, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I would like to give advice to my younger self at the age of 50, which is roughly when I was admitted into the House of Lords. I would say “make the most of this because you do not know how long it is going to last or what you will be able to do. So, try and do as much as you can, but do not kill yourself doing it.”

– WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF? I was involved in the campaign to criminalise forced labour and domestic servitude in this country in 2009. When I was campaigning around parliament, other parliamentarians were saying, “what do you mean, is it not already criminal?”

No, it was not. It is a historical anomaly. Because of the abolitionist and anti-slavery legislation in Africa and the Caribbean, slavery was never criminalised on British soil.1

The Interview Baroness Lola Young — Interview By Pawlet Brookes

– ARE ANY LIFE LESSONS YOU CAN SHARE? Be open. It is important to be open to ideas, be open to achieving the things you want to achieve in a different way to what you originally thought. A lot of people come to me and say they want to be a member of parliament. There are lots of ways of doing what you think an MP can do. If you want to change the world, there are lots of different ways of doing that. You can do that through arts and creativity as well. I think being open is really, really important.

I think empathy is hugely underrated, I think people get frightened of being too empathetic, but you should be empathetic. Especially, if you are campaigning around social justice, discrimination, and so on. If you cannot put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and understand how they felt the impact of whatever it is you’re campaigning about, it makes your kind of advocacy kind of sterile.

Footnotes 1.

A standalone offence of holding a person in slavery, servitude or forced labour was included in section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Prior to this, there were no statutes codifying modern slavery in England. In fact, the status of enslaved people on English soil had always been ambiguous. Colonial legislature defined this, but English law did not. Simply put, slavery has never been legal in England but it had also never been illegal.

Leah, N. G. (2021) Confronting the Yorke-Talbot Slavery Opinion and its legacy within English law. Gatehouse Chambers.

I will also say literacy. Across a range of areas. You need to be institutionally literate. Emotionally literate. And be able to read documents and papers and research papers, analyse them, absorb them, and then speak to them.

– FINALLY, WHAT ARE YOUR VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE, BOTH IN LIFE AND WORK? My vision for the future would be that we can galvanise enough people to say enough is enough. We must do something radically different in order that we do not wipe out the human species. We talk about saving the planet.

The planet will survive in some form or another. It is us and other creatures that will suffer from our profligate use of resources, and from the disrespectful, to say the least, way in which we treat other people. So that would be my vision, somewhat idealistic, but if people who were enslaved or women had given up, then we would be in a worse situation.

It is worth fighting for.

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“As a Blackwoman every act is a personal act every act is a political act” Maud Sulter

ISSN Number: 2634-4270