Against Apartheid
Group exhibition
Karst Contemporary Arts Gallery, Plymouth, England
—
29 September 2023 -
02 December 2023
Curated by Ashish Ghadiali
I had the privilege of travelling to Plymouth, England to deliver the key note speech at the opening of this beautifully curated joint show at Karst Contemporary Arts Gallery, as well as participate in the artist panel. Against Apartheid , envisioned by Ashish Ghadiali - who works within the Radical Ecology organisaton - is a confluence of work by visual artists, activist collectives and scientists to explore “the origins of climate apartheid” , defined by UN Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston as “where life becomes impossible for increasing sections of the human population. This scenario would predominantly impact black and brown communities living on the frontlines of climate breakdown.”
Present in this dynamic project were the works of Sue Williamson, Khaled Jarrar, Forensic Oceanography, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Sylvie Séma Glissant, Kedisha Coakley, Angela Camacho, Ashanti Hare and Iman Datoo, alongside my works from the series A Hymn to the Banished , commissioned by the National Trust for Scotland. New representations of work by climate scientists affiliated with the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute and by activist collectives, Alarm Phone and the Anti-Raids Network, were also featured.
From the KARST website: “Artists, activists and scientists included in the show put forward strategies for challenging the inherited culture of apartheid – restoring hidden lives and forgotten futures. Works in this group exhibition highlight the transcendence of race-thinking, new ecologies and the intergenerational and interspecies sensibilities through which our sense of future possibility is transfigured and transformed.
Against Apartheid is in partnership with Radical Ecology and supported by Arts Council England and Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter.”
Opening Day and Key Note Speech
Thanks to the University of Plymouthfor hosting my key note lecture, “Plotting against the Plantation.”
(photos courtesy of Luke Frost)
Artist Panel
Text excerpt on A Hymn to the Banished:
A Hymn to the Banished insinuates an interlacing of imperial linkages between Barbados and Scotland, inferring centuries of social disruption caused by the plantation system and the colonial project. With the forced transplantation of hundreds of thousands of enslaved African people and numerous Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English indentured labourers, systems of knowledge and rituals crossed the world’s ocean currents, building new cultures in the foreign lands of the West Indies.
British imperialism imposed banishment and generated suffering. Yet, deep knowledge and a desire to heal profound traumas elicited practices that relied on ancient traditions connected to the land and the remembering of sacred rites. Annalee Davis’s bespoke box lined with a fishnet captures and holds handmade books, a scroll of banished women, a container of charms, and other pieces. This limited edition explores notions of rupture, friction, entanglements, and the need to belong in strange places through rituals of incantations, charms, and the desire to repair the ills of British Empire-era indentureship and slavery.
A Hymn to the Banished is a secular prayer in the form of a visual meditation recognising the intuition, knowledge, customs, and tenacity of our forbears and their capacity to confront and survive cruel, brutal conditions.
Exhibition Press
Password to access these above recording on Vimeo: againstapartheid
