World News and the West: Beyond the US

 

Mood of the week...

I know many disagree but as a foreign news journalist, I can't take it anymore.

The British press is obsessed with the American elections… While there are so many issues to deal with here and worldwide!

 

 

By Melissa Chemam

 

 

 

The US election 2020 took place on Tuesday 3 November. We're Sunday 8 and all I can see in the news is continuous obsession with the process, result and focus on power.

As a journalist who has worked on foreign affairs since 2005, it seems obvious that this focus has only intensified. And I think it's terribly harmful.

Based in the USA in 2008, I settled in Miami, Florida, for the reason that most people know: In 2000, the voting system was famously messy in this key swing State with a high number of electors in the Electoral College. But I was also in Florida to travel to Haiti (which I did in April 2008) and write about the Haitian, Cuban, and other Hispanic communities in one of the most ethnically diverse states of this country. 

 

The problem with our journalistic coverage of America is that:

 1. It focuses on the powerful, and therefore on the White upper class in power 

 2. It erases most of the space for the rest of the world. 

 

So back in Europe after the election of Barack Obama, really depressed by this polarisation of foreign news, I applied a few months later for a job at the BBC World Service. And fortunately, I was hired. From 2009, I have been working on African Affairs full time, until 2015, for the BBC then other broadcasters and online reviews. And I still do regularly today, with a focus on culture. I write more predominantly on multiculturalism in Europe, Diaspora, and African - European - American relations. I'm actually writing a book on African, Caribbean and Black British artists at the moment.

 

Seeing the world between New York, Washington DC and London makes no one more able to understand the world we live in. And in the middle of a pandemic, which means a GLOBAL epidemic, it's more than ever outrageous. It is because our news should not be driven only by the most powerful economically and diplomatically; but also because the American model, which claimed to be a democratic inspiration for the world after WWII, certainly isn't and has become toxic and highly polluting.  

How to explain?

 

From our community of journalists, I see why this still dominates. 

Firstly, it's due to laziness! 

 

British media read the American press every day; French ones translate wires from the US. They just follow the trend. 

-It would indeed require much more effort, and more investment to send reporters in Karabakh / Artsakh in Azerbaijan to cover the war with Armenia, currently jeopardising the peace in the whole region, up to Iran, Russia and Turkey. 

 

-It’s much harder to cover 54 states in Africa, or to understand the causes of the multi-levelled crisis in Lebanon. 

 

-It's much more delicate to try to explain the roots of islamophobia in France, in its dark colonial past, and to decry the way Macron's government is instrumentalising the death of innocent people in terrible attacks to compete with the far right in xenophobic and stereotyping discourses that help neither the educators nor the health workers. 

 

-And it's become near to impossible to hold the British government into account for its irresponsible handling of the Brexit negotiations, which will lead us all in a disastrous departure from the European Union without any deal with Britain's stronger commercial and political partner, while, again, we're facing the worst health crisis since 1945 and the worst economic crisis.  

 

But this journalistic choice has stark implications. 

One example is that only The Times of India reported that, on US election day, Israel razes most of a Palestinian Bedouin village in the West Bank, though the press agency Reuters was the source (see here: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/israel-razes-most-of-palestinian-bedouin-village-in-west-bank-on-us-election-day/articleshow/79060639.cms). Other publications in the Western world just ignored this fact.  

 

Meanwhile, urgent talks about the climate emergency have been sidetracked, and the headlines about the environment get the small share. The UN conference on climate, the COP 26, should have taken place this November 2020 in Glasgow, Scotland, for instance, it’s been postponed for a year because of the Covid-19 crisis, what are the consequences for the environmental emergency?

 

Same interrogations about decisions on nuclear disarmament, while the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is due to become international law. 

 

With the current health crisis, we urgently need financial support for workers, many cities and councillors are calling for a basic income, but there is no space in the news to discuss issues impacting millions of people, because we focus on only one, the leader of the “greatest power.”

How about the future of journalism?

 

Since September 2019, I’ve also been teaching journalism here in England, on top of practicing it. And many of my students are foreign ones from China, India, Malaysia, Oman, Egypt, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, the Netherland, etc. I don’t want to contribute to reproducing this cycle. I’ve been talking with them about matters of representations, and hope they have had a look at my articles for Black History Month or those on the Lebanese crisis. 

 

Though the consequences of this election affects the whole world, we urgently need to rethink our foreign affairs in the news, as the English language still dominates the world of communication on most platforms but languages like Spanish (or Castilian, I should say), Mandarin and Arabic are swiftly taking over. Even in the U.S of A! 

 

The “greatest power” today should actually be seen as Russia, a country that has managed to influence deeply both the 2016 US election and the Brexit referendum, as the Cambridge Analytic scandal revealed. The most populous economy in the world and the richest is now China; the most populous democracy is India, facing immense dangers as well, as much as Brazil and Nigeria, where people have been protesting against police brutality for more than two weeks now. 

 

The domination of American politics over the rest of the world, especially in Europe, is an anomaly. It is man-made, and by white, male, business-oriented men “made”. We give power to what we focus on. And during the 2016 American campaign, most media gave all their attention to the candidate Donald Trump, in a sensationalist move. All media does at the moment is giving too much attention to male bullies who took too much power, against the law. 

 

It’s time for a radical shift. 

 

It’s time to focus on the “others”, whether women, unelected people, so-called ‘minorities’, oppressed and unfairly treated people. Let’s not forget that those who are called ‘minorities’ here in England or in the USA, are the vast majority in the whole world… Asians and Africans.

 

 As a journalist who has spent most of her 15-year career in public broadcasting, working with the values of public services in mind, I see how much the world has changed, and the domination of the few over the many cannot live on. Even in the media, and mostly not in the media. 

 

The world is vast, and includes more than 200 countries. If the western way of thinking has defined the way we see and describe the planet for decades, if not centuries, the “rest of the world” is definitely ready for a change. 

 

If we claim diversity is important inside our country, how could it not be worldwide?

 

 

 

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Melissa Chemam

Writer, Cultural Journalist, Reporter

UK Correspondent for European media

Former BBC World Service Reporter

Writer-in-residence @ Arnolfini Gallery

Associate Lecturer in journalism @ UWE Bristol

Africa at Arnolfini: New Bristol Book

 A bit more about this project! 

African Art at the “Arnolfini”, Bristol

Melissa ChemamOctober 24, 2020

Arnolfi – Source: Hannah Atkinson

Since September 2019, I have had the pleasure to be the writer in residence at the Arnolfini art gallery, here in Bristol, writing mainly on feminism, women artists and themes around resistance, worldwide. The exhibitions I covered include the feminist show ‘Still I Rise’, Amak Mahmoodian’s ‘Zanjir’, Angelica Mesiti’s ‘Assembly’ and later on, after the lockdown, Hassan Hajjaj’s ‘The Path’.

During the lockdown, the gallery had the idea of assembling a little art book, more than commissioning other blog posts, so they asked me if I’d like to work on a text dedicated to all the African, Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean British artists, the ones they invited to exhibit over the years since their opening in 1961.

It sounded so very relevant to me, as I’ve spent most of my adult life as a reporter on African news, on or in Africa, and worked lengthily for a film production company stemming from Haiti. I started working on a book that is now to me a sort of short history of what could be designated as “Black Art” in the UK and beyond.

As we’re now in the middle of Black History Month in the UK, I feel it’s a good time to say a bit more about them and this book.

Focus on black artists who made history

These include British artists like Veronica Ryan, Keith Piper and Donald Rodney – two key members of the ‘Black Art Group’ in the 1980s, but also a history of Carnival festivities, artists who took part in the Harlem Renaissance in New York in the 20thcentury, and some brilliant filmmakers and video artists like John Akomfrah. Some were born in the UK, others in Trinidad, Jamaica, Morocco, Sudan or Ghana…

This project gives me room to try to weave together the different parts of the African continent and the “triangular” routes that binds it to America and Europe. These themes have haunted my own work as a journalist, researcher and writer since the mid-2000s as well.

One example: My favourite show at the Arnolfini was definitely ‘Vertigo Sea’ by Ghanaian British filmmaker John Akomfrah. His work with the Black Audio Film Collective and lately Smoking Dogs Film definitely challenged this recent history of cinema and political art. Another relevant show I’ll cover in this book ‘Trophies of Empire’, and I had a very insightful discussions about it with artists and curators such as Keith Piper, Nav Haq and Graeme Evelyn, notably on what ‘Black Art’ really means, how this notion constantly evolves between a political meaning to a more sociological perspective or even, more recently, a strictly racial views.

In the 1970s, the most radical ‘Black’ British artists was probably Rasheed Araeen, who born in 1935 in Karachi and is therefore Pakistani, not African. In the 1980s, Jamaican and other Caribbean/South American British artists like Sonia Boyce and Frank Bowling revolutionised the artistic landscape. Since then, African British artists took centre stage like John Akomfrah and Lubaina Himid, whom I interviewed a few months before she received the Turner Prize. More recently artists from Nigeria, Morocco or Algeria have also left their mark, and been invited to key British art centre like The Arnolfini and the Hayward Gallery in Londone. It is a fascinating journey, everything but one-sided.

Bristol: A bridge between England, the Caribbean and Africa

Before I came to Bristol to start my research on the ‘Bristol Sound’ in 2015, I had lived in Paris, Prague and Miami, travelling to Haiti before  settling in London. I then moved to Africa, living in Kenya, travelling to Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Central Africa and Liberia, which changed my view of the UK and the western world in general…

And in a way, after these experiences, Bristol too shifted my perception of the UK, because its history is so much more overtly linked to the triangular trade with the Americas and Africa, and therefore to displacements and slavery. I first came to Bristol to visit Massive Attack’s studio when the city was the European Green Capital. Quickly, Bristol became both an exciting territory to explore, and a familiar cosy second home. It’s quite a peculiar experience.

Since then, Brexit followed, making myself not a welcome guest but an immigrant potentially facing a loss of civic rights, or even departure. More recently, Edward Colston’s statue was torn down, a complete watershed moment for Black Bristolians, after years of campaigning from different organisations and artists. I had much earlier discussed Colston with Massive Attack, who had always demanded a change of name for the auditorium bearing his name.

Over the years, writing about artists like Tricky, Mad Professor (the genius of dub music) or even Banksy embodied a story that included the consequences of colonialism, here in Britain, in the Caribbean, in Africa but also in Palestine or Iraq. These are the issues that have pervaded throughout everything I do as a journalist, writer, or researcher because they define our modern civilisation.

Moreover, my own family is from North Africa, which is a part of the continent that is underreported in the English-speaking world; North African people are almost never mentioned, let alone artists. The Arnolfini however did receive artists from Sudan, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt; so did the Watershed cinema with films. Elsewhere in Bristol, my experience is that Bristolians can be very vocal, quite territorial, and polarised on the relations between white English citizens and their Caribbean counterparts.

That leaves very little room to bring in voices from South Asia, South America, East Africa, the Middle East or North Africa – where other people of colour have a different but sometimes really relevant experience of colonialism, religions and racism. I even feel sometimes that it’s delusional to want to be part of such a city. This is compounded by Brexit and misrepresented debates on history, polarised divisions and also high inequalities.

So more than ever, writing about art opens a way to relate to a different community, beyond borders and beyond the ‘colour line’, around shared values of inclusivity, creativity and knowledge.

My book for the Arnolfini is still a work in progress. I’ve looked into catalogues and archives, reflected on the meaning of these artists’ works, on different levels. I’ve been in touch with some of the artists and curators involved: some have sent me some articles, links, video recordings about their art, from back then and now; others have had time for an interview.  

My own memories of some of the exhibitions, or encounters with these artists’ work in other places, as well as some of my research done from 2015 for my previous book, on Bristol’s music scene, also nourished this project.

What I know for sure is that writing about such socially aware and even sometimes politically engaged art allows much more depth. It enables – just like my work in fiction – one to dig into different sorts of subjectivities, recognised and accepted as such, to explain our very complex world with multiple shades of colours.

Ed: Melissa’s book will be out in March 2021, as part of the celebrations for the 60 years of Arnolfini. 
Arnolfini is Bristol’s International Centre for Contemporary Arts located on the harbourside in the heart of the city.

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Link to West England Bylines: https://westenglandbylines.co.uk/african-art-at-the-arnolfini-bristol/

On White Privilege and Black History

 

Black History Month, White Privilege and Kemi Badenoch

 

 

 

In the middle of Black History Month, the UK government sent a black minister, Kemi Badenoch, to tell the House of Commons that 'Teaching white privilege as uncontested fact is illegal'.   

 

Yet past and present racism continue to run deep in the country, as well as in the entire world...

 

As a journalist, I've worked on African affairs since 2006, joining Velvet Film, a company set up between Haiti, New York and Paris to produce films on Haitan and African history. 

That gave films like 'Lumumba', 'Sometimes in April' on the Rwanda genocide, and more recently 'I Am Not Your Negro' on James Baldwin, winner of the BAFTA for best documentary film on 2018... 

 

In the meantimes, I joined the BBC African news section in 2009 and became a correspondent in East Africa a year later. I have since reported in 14 African countries, in the Caribbean and in Europe about racism and colonial history.

 

2020 has so far been a watershed year for minorities' rights and especially for Black Lives Matter, at the price of extreme suffering. 

Teaching the reality of 'black' history, of colonialism history, of displacement and slavery should not, and never, just like the criticism on extreme capitalism, be reduced to teaching secondary subjectivities or subjective points of views. 

These are facts, based on events documented by historians and to these days by sociologists, journalists and activists.

 

I've covered anti-racist protests since the toppling of the Colston Statue here in Bristol, spoken to activists like educator Aisha Thomas recently and filmmaker Michael Jenkins, listened to historians Olivette Otiele and David Olusoga, started writing a book on Black art and Caribbean / African artists living or invited in the UK. 

 Details here: https://arnolfini.org.uk/africa-at-arnolfini/?fbclid=IwAR3iuErzpTJiAzAIW4RTBzfelYCttiSHyoczsyMo2skmHQcWJy3WVH5a4-A 

 

I felt the country had made so much progress in the past few years, since my first book on Bristol's music scene, a scene deeply inspired by reggae and soul music, by artists from the Caribbean and Africa. 

 See details here: https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/music/massive-attack-the-birth-of-the-bristol-sound   

 

But this debate in Parliament, just like the attempt to forbid teachers to address critical thinking that came out last month, are dangerous paths to revisionism.

 

 

 

'A Countervailing Theory'

My favourite art exhibition of this autumn in London:

A narrated walk through Toyin Ojih Odutola's 'A Countervailing Theory'

Nigerian-American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola takes us through her exhibition 'A Countervailing Theory', highlighting key moments in the story unfolding before our eyes on the artworks

Toyin Ojih Odutola: A Countervailing Theory is on in the Curve until 24 Jan 2021: https://bit.ly/37AAyM6 Show your support for the Barbican by making a donation and help inspire more people to discover and love the arts. https://www.barbican.org.uk/donate Pushing the boundaries of theatre, dance, film, music and visual art, the Barbican is a world-class arts and learning centre. Subscribe: http://ow.ly/O44tx Like: http://www.facebook.com/barbicancentre Follow: http://www.twitter.com/barbicancentre Discover: http://www.instagram.com/barbicancentre Explore: https://www.barbican.org.uk/read-watc... What’s on? http://www.barbican.org.uk Welcome to the Barbican Centre's YouTube channel. From exclusive trailers and specially commissioned interviews to concert recordings, behind the scenes tours and insights into the unseen areas of the Barbican, subscribe to our channel for all the latest Barbican videos.

Black History Month: With Bristol artists and activists making a major difference

 

Busy week, busy month, busy year...

Here is my first article for the wonderful and deeply needed independent publication Byline Times for Black History Month: 

‘We Want the Ability, Space & Time to Retell Our Own History’

Melissa Chemam

21 October 2020

A Black Lives Matter protest in June 2020. Photo: Melissa Chemam

Melissa Chemam speaks to campaigners and creatives taking part in Black History Month in Bristol, where the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was brought down in June and discussions about past and present racism continue to run deep

Michael Jenkins is a film-maker and activist. Since 2015, he has been working on a film about his city’s relationship with the “myth of Edward Colston” for his own Bristol-based production company, Blak Wave.

For him, 2020 has been a game-changing year. For Black History Month, he has been invited to share the first trailer of his film Colston: A Bristol Story at the Bristol Old Vic theatre, one of the oldest in the UK, as part of five events curated by the award-winning Bristol playwright Chinonyerem Odimba.

“My father is mixed-race, his father is from Jamaica and his mother from Swindon; and my mother is from Domenica so, for me, retelling the history of Caribbean people is a passion and a duty,” Michael says. “With this film, I hope to help people get a better understanding of people like Edward Colston.” 

For over a century, the slave trader has been celebrated in Bristol as a philanthropist and a benefactor. “Do we really want to celebrate people like that?” Michael asks. 

In June, Colston’s statue in Bristol city centre was torn down during a Black Lives Matter protest. Since that day, Bristolians have been fiercely debating the consequences of the watershed moment.

Michael Jenkins

Before the statue fell, a group known as Countering Colston had been campaigning for its peaceful removal by the city council for years. The former Lord Mayor and current Green City Councillor Cleo Lake had managed to remove his painting from the city hall a couple of years before. American British historian Madge Dresser and film-maker and Professor Dr Shawn Sobers had worked on a plaque to rebalance Colston’s history, but it was not approved by the current mayor Marvin Rees, himself half-Jamaican.

“For long, I thought I would conclude my film with the pose of this plaque,” Michael adds, “but the democratic process was not allowed to go through. So it was only natural the statue would eventually go in some other way.”

Michael was born in Southmeads, Bristol. His parents had moved to Bath to avoid constant racism. When he learned about American and Caribbean history as a 12-year-old, mainly through films such as Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, he started developing a keen interest in history and a passion for cinema. “I grew up followed by the police just because I was black, so I had to educate myself to understand the deeper reasons,” he explains. 

“At 12 or 13, when in Bristol, I couldn’t care less about the statue. But then I heard that the band Massive Attack refused to play in the city’s auditorium, because of its name, Colston Hall. And, in 2007, an exhibition also retraced that part of the city’s history. Then I looked around and saw that Colston and his organisation, the Merchant Venturers, were still celebrated everywhere in Bristol, almost like a cult.” 

Colston Hall recently changed its name to the Bristol Beacon, while the Colston Girls School also announced that it would be changing its name. A pub has changed names too, but Colston still seems to haunt the area.

At some point, white people will have to give up their seat to others, for a while, so that we can properly live together.

Aisha Thomas

For Michael, the discussions being had around Bristol’s history are positive in that the issues they are raising are now less hidden, compared to neighbouring cities such as Bath or Oxford.

“All we want now is the ability, space and time to retell our own history, and our own stories,” he says. “That’s my mission and my goal.”

His film, a passion project for which he had no funding, is now complete and will be shown by the end of the year in local cinemas such as the Watershed and the Cube.

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COVID and Racism

Aisha Thomas, an educator, TEDx speaker and activist, is also a guest at the Bristol Old Vic’s series of events for Black History Month. She is the founder of Representation Matters and was invited to talk at the weekend about education as a tool of resistance and how the National Curriculum can be made fairer and more explanatory for all British children.  

A teacher and associate principal, the mother-of-two is constantly engaging with her community on these issues, with 2020 being a very unusual year for her profession.

“COVID completely knocked us down and then there was the issue of racism,” she says. “For instance, I was screamed at in the street. A woman refused to let me be in the same queue as her at the local supermarket, saying black people brought everyone COVID. So, on top of suffering, we have to explain that, if people of colour are more affected by pandemics, it’s not about genetics, but about having jobs in the frontline, or less access to healthcare.”

Aisha Thomas

Following the killing of George Floyd in America, she says that some of her pupils came to her crying, saying “Miss, it’s so hard being black”. She wrote an open letter to the school “to explain how we live through this”.

As a result, Aisha managed to introduce some books to discuss in her classroom, such as Akala’s Natives. She believes it is necessary to start educating children about prejudice as early as possible.   

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Living History

Other Black History Month events in Bristol discussed women in creativity, considered how to decolonise universities, and celebrated the tradition of the Caribbean carnival in Britain – embodied by St Paul’s Carnival in Bristol and Notting Hill in London. 

Speakers also addressed the need to celebrate the positive part of black history. University of the West of England Bristol lecturer, broadcaster and activist Roger Griffith gave a talk about the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott, which saw black activists protest against the local transport company refusing to employ people of colour. The movement contributed to bringing about the first Race Relations Act in 1965. 

Meanwhile, the historian Roger Ball discussed the impact of the 1980 St Pauls riots in a Caribbean neighbourhood n Bristol, which saw young black boys protest police brutality.   

“Segregation pays and it still continues,” says Aisha. “Marginalised people want change but we need allyship. At some point, white people will have to give up their seat to others, for a while, so that we can properly live together.”

We’re definitely not there yet. 

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SUBSCRIBE to Byline Times now and get this month’s digital edition immediately

what the papers don’t say

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link to article: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/21/we-want-the-ability-space-time-to-retell-our-own-history/

A podcast episode with NHS workers and the Migration Museum's exhibition on healthcare

This episode is really dear to my heart! 

Have a listen: https://the-quarantini.captivate.fm/episode/a-quarantini-with-the-nhs

A Quarantini with the NHS

In the final episode of season 3 we celebrate the NHS.

At a NHS Workers Say No protest march in Bristol, we hear from NHS nurses including Alex Oldham and Shannon O’Sullivan.

From the Migration Museum, Robyn Kasozi (pictured) talks about the brand new free online exhibition - Heart of the Nation: Migration and Making of the NHS.

And we have poetry from NHS staff, from the book These Are The Hands, Poems from the Heart of the NHS, Foreword by Michael Rosen, Fair Acre Press. (You can buy it here).

PLUS - our usual round up of positive responses to the virus from around the world....

Music: 

The NHS Song (parody SOS, ABBA)

Hot Flu, Seb Gutiez, The Old Bones Collective - opening music

Hosts: Melissa Chemam and Pommy Harmar

Producer: Pommy Harmar

A Quarantini with the NHS

Have a listen: https://the-quarantini.captivate.fm/episode/a-quarantini-with-the-nhs

AFRICA AT ARNOLFINI: Upcoming art book

 

Dear friends,

I hope this finds you all well. 

For those of you who worked with me on this, thank you so much for your time, and here is more about the book.

For everyone, a little insight.

With my best wishes,

melissa 

 Africa at Arnolfini | Interview 

We're creating a little art book with some lovely people

@ArnolfiniArts

!! 

This is the final result of my residence at Arnolfini this unordinary year… 

A book on the African and Caribbean artists the gallery invited to exhibit over 60 years!

I've been working on it since April and it'll be out next spring. More soon… 

 

Africa at Arnolfini | Interview with Arnolfini’s Writer in Residence, Melissa Chemam

Posted Tuesday 20 October 2020

To coincide with Black History Month, our writer in residence Melissa Chemam talks to us about her new project

What are you writing about, Melissa?
After about six months as the writer-in-residence at the Arnolfini, writing short pieces on women artists, feminism and resistance worldwide, we had the idea of assembling a little art book. A text dedicated to all the African, Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean British artists who Arnolfini has invited to exhibit over the years since 1961… That was in April and it sounded very relevant to me, as I’ve spent most of my adult life as a reporter on African news, in and out of Africa; I’ve worked for a film production company from Haiti; and as the daughter of Algerian immigrants to Paris, I’m a member of the African diaspora myself.

I started working on this book that is now to me a sort of short history of “Black Art” in the UK. Some of the artists are from the UK, others were born in Trinidad, Jamaica, Morocco, Sudan or Ghana, so it gives me room to try to weave together the different parts of the African continent, as well as the “triangular” routes that bind it with the Americas and Europe. These are themes that have haunted my work as a journalist, researcher and writer since the mid-2000s as well.

How have you been researching it?
I’ve started by trying to get in touch with some of the artists and curators. Some sent me articles, links, video recordings about their art, from back then and from now. Others have had the time for an interview. Then I’ve looked into catalogues, at Arnolfini, and also at Bristol Archives (which was a great chance to visit this wonderful place, despite the current Covid restrictions). Writing about art is one of my favourite endeavours as a writer, because it allows so much depth, and to dig into all different sorts of subjectivities. And the rest is about my own memories of some of the exhibitions, or some of these artists’ work in other places, as well as things I was researching from 2015 for my previous book, on Bristol’s music and graffiti scene Out of the Comfort Zone (Tangent Books, 2019).

Could you tell us a bit about your relationship with Bristol?
Before I came to Bristol, I had lived in London for years and thought I knew and loved England… But Bristol revolutionised my vision of the UK. I came after years reporting mainly in Africa, to write more about art and music than about immigration and politics. I came precisely because it has links with both the Americas and Africa. Links with the consequences of colonial conquests, from the 1500s up to recently.

The city was then the European Green capital. I immediately fell in love with Bristol people and their energy. I felt a strong sense of community here, and an interest in climate justice, so I came again and stayed for weeks. I met so many people – artists, writers, historians, curators, charity workers, etc. I walked mostly, from the Arnolfini and Watershed to St. Andrews and Gloucester Road, or Trinity in Easton and artists’ homes in Clifton, in Hotwells and Bedminster, in St. Paul’s and St. Werburgh’s. I stayed in these different neighbourhoods with different people of different ages and origins and always found commonalities. Bristol became both an exciting territory to explore and a familiar second home. It’s been quite a unique experience for me.

I moved here finally a year ago, and since we have been through a lot… First there was Brexit! Then the Covid crisis, with the quasi-impossibility to travel… For a nomad like myself, it took a special place to not feel desperate. I walked almost daily along the Harbourside or in one of Bristol’s parks. And of course Edward Colston’s statue was torn down! A statue which I had discussed with a member of Massive Attack very early on…

Bristol and I, it’s a weird relationship, in a way. I’m from a North African background, lived in warm climate for years, and always thought I would one day settle somewhere like Italy… And sometimes some Bristolians can be a bit territorial, so I can feel like it’s delusional to want to be part of such a city, with complex history, divisions. I regularly wonder: where do I fit? But I’m still here and there is mostly joy, learning and friendship on a daily basis!

Are there any spoilers or favourite stories you’d like to share?
My favourite show at the Arnolfini was definitely ‘Vertigo Sea’ by Ghanaian British filmmaker John Akomfrah, in 2016! His work with the Black Audio Film Collective and lately Smoking Dogs Film has had a huge influence on my tastes in art and reflections on our post-modern world… The other show on the top list is ‘Trophies of Empire’; my discussion with Keith Piper was very insightful, notably on what ‘Black Art’ really means, between a political meaning to a more sociological perspective, not even strictly racial. In the 1970s, the most radical British ‘Black’ artist in the UK was probably Rasheed Araeen, born in 1935 in Karachi. Then Jamaican and other Caribbean British artists like Sonia Boyce and Frank Bowling revolutionised the artistic landscape. And more recently, African artists born on the African continent have left their mark, etc. It is a fascinating journey, and everything but one-sided.

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Melissa’s book will be launched in March 2021, as part of the celebrations to mark Arnolfini’s 60^th anniversary. More information to follow. 

Frank Bowling will be exhibiting at Arnolfini in Summer 2021.

 

Read on Arnolfini's website: 

https://arnolfini.org.uk/africa-at-arnolfini/?fbclid=IwAR3iuErzpTJiAzAIW4RTBzfelYCttiSHyoczsyMo2skmHQcWJy3WVH5a4-A