Black Lives Matter
I’ve been trying to decide whether to say anything on here about the hugely important black lives matter movement that has (re)ignited across the world over the last few weeks. This doesn’t need yet another well-meaning but ill-informed white voice piping up to drown out the voices that really need our attention and support.
But it felt wrong not to recognise this moment in some way, so I thought I’d use this space to start a running list of resources that I have found useful to educate myself. I’m privileged to have this time of paid furlough to use in this way, and have found the below really helpful:
Gary Younge wrote a thought-provoking piece in the New Statesman about why ‘We can’t breathe’ is as relevant to the Covid-19 pandemic as the horrifying murder of George Floyd.
Dr Robin DiAngelo talks brilliantly about White Fragility, and how we need to understand racism. Thanks to the White Pube for alerting me to this film.
David Olusoga has been writing about the removal of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol and Mary Beard has offered some helpful thoughts on the value of public sculpture more generally.
The Wonder House podcast looks at how to decolonise museums, with episodes in the first series particularly looking at science collections and history departments within universities.
The Guardian suggested 20 positive ways to bring about lasting change.
Museum Detox have written about how to be more than a performative ally within the museum sector.
I’ve bought and downloaded many more books and podcasts that have been recommended so will add more below as I digest them. For now I want to record here that I want to continue to learn and continue to help. I’m grateful to the friends and colleagues who keep me engaged and angry. #BlackLivesMatter
Added 19-21 June:
There are lots of important posts on The Incluseum about how museums need to rethink their most fundamental ways of working. I found Cartography by Dr Porcia Moore and Uncovering White Supremacy by Hannah Heller, nikhil trivedi and Joanne Jones-Rizzi particularly powerful
Likewise Art Matters is a brilliantly wide-ranging podcast by Ferren Gipson for ArtUK but this week I have found podcasts particularly illuminating on Soul of a Nation, the black presence in European painting, and Black Girl Magic.
An inspiring colleague recommended that I read James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, which has given me much to think seriously about. I am most struck, for now with his comment ‘To accept one’s past - one’s history - is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it’. This is, sadly, clearly as true now for white British people as it was when he wrote for an American audience in 1963.
This graphic really struck me on how to understand your actions in becoming an anti-racist.
Added 30 June:
The Whitechapel gallery have published a series of blogs with resources that give voice to black lives and why they matter. I found the TED interview with the founders of the movement particularly important listening.
I’ve been watching two of David Olusoga’s superb BBC television programmes: the recent A House through Time based in Bristol and the older Black and British: A Forgotten History. As well as being great television, they both show beautifully how much systemic racism is woven into our national story and how we understand that history, or rather don’t.
Lisson Gallery hosted an online discussion with the artist John Akomfrah and academics Tina Campt and Saidiya Hartman, chaired by Ekow Eshun, in relation to Akomfrah’s film piece Handsworth Songs from 1986. I was particularly struck by a comment at the end about how current support for black protest movements is admitting complicity rather than simply expressing empathy, and a hope that this is bringing real change.
Related to Robin DiAngelo’s work above, I found this post on ‘10 things every white teacher should know when talking about race’ just as relevant to me. The film of a ‘privilege walk’ half way down particularly brought the message home.
Added 4 July:
I’ve been working my way through the excellent series of comments on Decolonizing Art History written for the journal Art History in February 2020.
The Contemporary Art Society are compiling a database of resources for arts professionals, including some brilliant looking research projects I didn’t know much about.
Lots of excellent suggestions for widening your reading list of black British authors from the Guardian.
Added 9 July:
I’ve been doing lots more reading and listening about statues this week. I found this article in Cultural Practice really illuminating with contributions from different experts, especially Stephen Welsh on the relationship of statues to human remains and sacred objects.
This programme on Radio 4 was also really helpful in looking at memorials in different nations and contexts, particularly the artist Hew Locke.
Most of all, I found this piece in the Arts Newspaper by Gus Casely-Hayford, Director of V&A East, both searing and inspiring in what cultural institutions should and can do to address their pasts. His conclusion: “Great culture well deployed is kryptonite to fascists, anathema to fundamentalists and a bolt of lightning to the complacent who hate change.”
Added 21 August:
I’ve been looking more into research and exhibitions focused on black artists in the twentieth century, including the research project Black Artists and Modernism, the Nottingham Contemporary show ‘The Place is Here’, the Somerset House show ‘Get Up, Stand Up Now’, and Gagosian Quarterly on the role of Peggy Cooper Cafritz and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington DC.
I happened to hear the Food Programme last week on Food and the Legacy of Slavery, a story that I thought I knew, but so much that I didn’t, including the origin of the word ‘yummy’. If ‘origin unknown’ for a word means it’s from black culture, then racism is so much deeper than I ever appreciated.
I’ve been working my way through the brilliant podcast ‘About Race’ by Reni Eddo-Lodge, author of Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race, which has made me appreciate the importance of cultural events in the 90s in a way I missed as a child.
I’ve seen lots of lists of black authors to read, but found this added selection of films and TV shows from Time Out a useful addition. Some I’ve seen, many I’ve not heard of.
Added 8 October:
The (American) Association of Art Museum Curators and Art Fund collaborated on an excellent seminar in September on Beyond Statements: People Power, how museums can convert statements to action, with more to come.
Listening to that, I learnt about the Black Lives Matter Charter put together by Culture& for the UK.
A colleague recommended Culture&’s Errol Francis speaking about Decolonising the Database for the Collections Trust Conference - crucial watching.
I am belatedly reading, and completely hooked by, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo.
The completely brilliant Inua Ellams is staging An Evening with an Immigrant at the Bridge Theatre, London until 7 November. His heady mix of comedy and poetry has really opened my eyes.
Added February 2021:
Thanks to the Museums Associations for bringing together this excellent list of Decolonisation Resources.
A feast of different voices on the re-launched blog on decolonizing collections in response to debates about the Humboldt Forum.
Much to think about from the conversation ‘Necrography: Death-Writing in the Colonial Museum’ in British Art Studies led by Professor Dan Hicks out of his recent book.
8 documentaries on black artists recommended in this list by Sothebys.