Marseille / Snapshot

 

January 2022.

It's been so good to start travelling again a little...

Bristol > Paris > Marseille... 

January 2022 News // Letter

 

Dear friends, colleagues, culture & art lovers,

I hope this email finds you well.

Firstly, happy new year and best wishes for 2022!

For everyone, 2021 has been full of ups and downs, and probably a lot of disappointments, losses, frustrations... It's also been a time full of success and hard work for so many.

I, however, truly believe that what the world needs more than ever is to think collectively and to invest in safe and sane interdependence. For our planet, our healthcare systems, in education, in politics, and of course, closer to our team at UWE Bristol, in media/news production.

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For those of you interested in my work as a journalist and art commentator, here is the latest, about Art, Writing, Music & Multiculturalism.

On John Berger's 'Ways of Seeing' @ 50 & Lubaina Himid - BBC Radio 4

Five writers talk about looking at pictures, to mark the 50th anniversary of Ways of Seeing - the 1972 TV series presented by John Berger and its accompanying book.

Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00132xf

African & Diaspora Artists in Britain:

Conversation with Dr Anne Harbin - UWE / Arnolfini, Bristol

ART HISTORY - 'Here, there… Evenwhere': A personal history of 60 years of African and African diaspora Artists at Arnolfini.

Watch our conversation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDwTAuC5Ls4

Read the book here:

https://arnolfini.org.uk/app/uploads/2021/10/African_Arnolfini_DigitalPDF_165x230mm_AW.3.pdf

Out of Algeria

A text about contemporary artists who are dear to my heart, for the new magazine the Journal of Creative Pursuit, issue nb#2:

"A publication that explores social and cultural issues through creative work. Acknowledging the systemic inequalities within the creative industries, this publication seeks to diversify the narratives it creates. We aim to bring attention to creatives who are underrepresented on the global scale. We hope that through the stories and discussions we have with creatives from different parts of the world, we can shed light on some cultural and social issues that various communities face."

On Arabic Music

New column... for The Markaz Review.

First episode:

Electronic Music in Riyadh?

https://themarkaz.org/electronic-music-in-riyadh/

Electronic music is trending in the Arab world and Iran, but is Saudi Arabia the best place to showcase it?

Read, react and share if you care.

Part II: Music in the Middle East: Business can’t Buy Authenticity

https://themarkaz.org/music-in-the-middle-east-business-cant-buy-authenticity/

Multiculturalism in British Music

TIMES OF REINVENTIONS: HOW BRISTOL MUSIC SCENE EVOLVED IN THE MID 1990’S

For BIMM Bristol - read here:

https://blog.bimm.co.uk/times-of-reinventions-how-the-bristol-music-scene-evolved-in-the-1990s-mmu

'Writing for Change:

Can Words Truly Inspire a Better World?'

Lastly, this discussion from the Working-Class Writers Festival, which took place in October 2021 in Bristol, is now available to listen online.

Insight into the previous themes mentioned but also a class perspective:

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht0oyC23cGQ&list=PL2j4bv2AiVXIy8XkIGy1Y_IiOVQkTJs9w&index=11

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My next article will be about Britain and its colonial past... how it still impacts us and how artists are reacting to it. Then I'll write about artists from different parts of the world.

I'll be in Marseille soon, and hopefully later in the year in Liverpool then Berlin. If you're there, let's create a discussion!

I wish you all a new year of great music, art and events, hopefully. Let's make the most of 2022.

With my very best wishes,

melissa

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Melissa Chemam

Writer, Journalist, Researcher

Lecturer in Media & Journalism (Bristol)

Writer in residence at Arnolfini Art Gallery

E: melissa.journalist@gmail.com

W: https://sites.google.com/view/melissachemam

Bristol VS Colston: 'Not Guilty'

 

Yesterday, in my adopted city of Bristol, four Black Lives Matter protesters were  cleared over toppling of Edward Colston statue:

 Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Sage Willoughby and Jake Skuse were found not guilty over act of public dissent during Bristol protest.

In closing statements following the nine-day trial, the defence had urged jurors to “be on the right side of history”, saying the statue, was so indecent and potentially abusive that it constituted a crime.

It stood over the city for 125 years...

More on the history that led Bristol to this unlikely trial very soon, in a long feature article I've been working on since August...

John Berger's Ways of Seeing at 50: My reflection on art via the work of Zanzibar-born British artist Lubaina Himid

 Such an honour to be part of this excellent series on BBC Radio for on art and the world around us. Here is how to listen: 

Viewfinders: 

Ways of Seeing at 50

Melissa Chemam - An Installation by Lubaina Himid

Viewfinders: Ways of Seeing at 50

Episode 5 of 5

Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00132xf

First broadcast in 1972 on BBC Two, Ways of Seeing was a collaboration between the writer John Berger and director Mike Dibb. Across a series of four half-hour episodes, Berger talked about how we look at art, and why it matters: "The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled ... The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe ... Every image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph ... Our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing". The programmes explored Walter Benjamin's ideas about the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction; the female nude and the male gaze; oil painting, status and ownership; advertising, art and commerce. The book published to accompany the series has never been out of print and has had a profound influence on popular understanding of art criticism and visual culture. 

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Ways of Seeing, Radio 4 invites five writers to tell us about a work of art that is important to them, and to reflect on how Ways of Seeing influenced their own ways of looking at - and thinking about - art.

In today's episode, we follow Bristol-based French writer Melissa Chemam to the island of Zanzibar, to the refugee camps of Calais and into galleries back in the UK: "I discovered Himid’s installation ‘Naming The Money’ almost by chance. I came upon it in 2017, at Spike Island, an art gallery here in Bristol. It was part of an exhibition called “Navigation Charts”, which felt fitting for this port city with its complex past, enriched by transatlantic trades… Sugar, tobacco and enslaved people".

Melissa Chemam is a writer and broadcaster. She has reported from the USA, Europe, and East and Central Africa for the BBC World Service, AFP, Reuters, CBC and more. She is the author of a book on Bristol's culture, 'Massive Attack - Out of the Comfort Zone' and has been the writer-in-residence at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, UK since 2019.

John Berger was a storyteller, a novelist, a painter, a poet, a critic, a screenwriter, a playwright. He died in 2017, at the age of 90.

Produced by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio

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All the episodes here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001324l/episodes/guide