August News//Letter

 

August News//Letter: 

Rethinking Art History, Creativity and Colonial History... 

- Book Events and New Writing -

Dear friends, colleagues, culture & art lovers,

I hope this email finds you well!

Please, allow me to share with you my latest newsletter. 

For more on my writing and reflections about art, music, multiculturalism, post-colonial history, activism, here are a few links and events to come.

Firstly:

Welcome Back Bristol! 

Saturday 14th August 2021 18:30 At Waterstones, Bristol - Galleries is very happy to reopen their shop to events! 

Join us "local" authors: Martin Booth, Melissa Chemam, Mike Manson and Colin Moody to discuss works on our great city. 

Martin is the editor of Bristol24/7 and author of 111 Places in Bristol that you Shouldn't Miss. 

Melissa is a journalist, lecturer and author of Massive Attack: Out of the Comfort Zone. 

Mike is a local author who has worked on the Bristol Short Story Prize and published several books on the city, including the Bristol Miscellany. 

Colin is a photographer whose books document the diversity and spirit of Bristol.

This will be your chance to listen to all four speakers, get a copy of their books signed and enjoy an evening celebrating Bristol.

Free event on Saturday 14 August 2021,18:30 at Waterstones, Bristol - Galleries, register here! 

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For more on the Bristol's street art scene, here is my article for Reader's Digest:

Rediscovering Bristol's 

original graffiti artists

In the 80's, Bristol was one of the pioneering graffiti art hotspots in the world. A new exhibition at the M Shed museum in Bristol pays tribute to its history. 

Read here. 

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Meanwhile, as some of you may know, I worked for a year on a book with and for the art gallery Arnolfini, here in Bristol, as their writer in residence, I'm so excited to share the result!

Here, There... Evenwhere:

African & Diaspora Artists at Arnolfini 

 

The art book will be released in October, and we are organising events, at the gallery, the university and online, to generate a wider discussion.

Some of the artists mentioned are from the UK, others were born in the USA, Trinidad, Jamaica, Montserrat, but also Morocco, Sudan, Algeria, Ethiopia or Ghana... But most of them had to work in the margins, or to form their own groups and find their personal space to be exhibited and deliver another vision of the arts / the world we live in.

Donald Rodney, 'Double Think', 1992

This alternative part of history of art gave me room to try to weave together different parts of the African continent - that I have visited or lived in. The project also retraces the routes that binded Africa with the Americas and Europe over the centuries.

These are themes that have haunted my work as a journalist, researcher and writer since the mid-2000s at least...

'Still I Rise', Arnolfini, 2019

Since the 2000s, many of these artists have been simultaneously exhibiting in London, Liverpool, Nottingham, New York, Berlin, Venice and further. John Akomfrah, Veronica Ryan, Keith Peiper, Donald Rodney, Sonia Boyce, Frank Bowling, Hassan Hajjaj, etc.

That's why I'd love to create dialogues and generate further encounters with African artists exhibiting in other parts of the world, when this book is out. 

Do get in touch if you're interested in taking part in our wider discussion! 

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Here are other related articles, recently released:

I AM History

My latest articles for the online magazine on 'Black' art and culture: 

>> ‘Mother Of Mankind’ Exhibition Celebrating Black Women Artists

2021 is a great year of reckoning for many Black women artists in the UK. And an amazing set of exhibitions allows us to enjoy their powerful work this summer. It starts with the exceptional Mother of Mankind exhibition on view at the House Of Fine Arts Mayfair space in London, which is free and open until 31 August. 

>> Lubaina Himid And Sonia Boyce, Pioneers Of Black British Art

The two pioneering artists paved the way for Black women artists in Britain. Both have incredible work on display this year that you absolutely must see.

Frank Bowling, Icon and Inspiration 

This summer, a mesmerising exhibition of the unanimously admired painter Frank Bowling is also on display at Arnolfini, Bristol. 

My interview with Frank Bowling will soon be available to read on Art UK here.

Television Series

on Colonial History 

In the spring, I've been working as a researcher on a historical TV series still in the making... While the documentary series I've worked on for years has been released on HBO in the USA on Sky and NOW TV  in the UK: 'Exterminate All the Brutes'. 

'Exterminate All the Brutes', by acclaimed filmmaker Raoul Peck ('I Am Not Your Negro', HBO’s 'Sometimes in April'), is a four-part hybrid docuseries offering an expansive exploration of the exploitative and genocidal aspects of European colonialism, from America to Africa, and its impact on society today. 

Based on works by three authors and scholars — Sven Lindqvist’s Exterminate All the Brutes, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past— 'Exterminate All the Brutes' revisits and reframes the profound impact of the Native American genocide and American slavery as it fundamentally informs the present.

Review: 'HBO’s Exterminate All the Brutes Is a Radical Masterpiece About White Supremacy, Violence and the History of the West' - Time Magazine 

Bristol - Fall of Colston, 

One Year On

The statue of 17th century merchant and slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down here in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest, on 7 June 2020. 125 years later.

One year on, the statue now is part of a new display at M Shed museum, on the docks, in partnership with the We Are Bristol History Commission.

Read about it here on my blog. 

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On a professional level, in June 2021 I became a Senior Lecturer in Journalism and Media Production, at the University of the West of England (UWE), within the Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education (ACE). 

I really enjoy working with UWE; our campus is one of the greenest in Europe and my team is brilliant and creative. I look forward to new projects next year!

In June, I also interviewed one of our students on how the past year went, you can have a listen on The Quarantini Podcast here. 

I intend to pursue my research on multiculturalism and

 African-American-European exchanges & relations. 

Working-Class 

Writers Festival

Finally, a dynamic new literary festival of national significance will also take place in Bristol in October 2021.

 It aims to enhance, encourage and increase representation from the 'working class' across the country, whilst connecting authors, readers, agents and editors. 

The artistic director is Natasha Carthew, an award-winning working-class writer and poet, a passionate campaigner for working-class representation in the arts.

I've been asked to be part of it! I'll run a workshop on 'Writing in English as a Second Language', the weekend of 21-22 October here in Bristol. 

This event is partnered by Bristol Ideas, Watershed and Knowle West Media Centre. 

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Do get in touch for more.

You can also follow my work on Twitter, LinkedIn, via my Facebook page Melissa on the Road, or my blog. 

Many thanks for your attention! 

With my very best wishes,

melissa 

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Melissa Chemam

Writer, Journalist, Researcher

Senior Lecturer @ UWE Bristol

Email: mchemam@gmail.com

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

Waterstones, Bristol - Galleries // Event // Sat. 14 August 2021

 Welcome Back Bristol!

Saturday 14th August 2021

18:30 

At Waterstones, Bristol - Galleries

We're very happy to reopen our shop events!

Join us as we welcome local authors Martin Booth, Melissa Chemam, Mike Manson and Colin Moody to discuss their works on our great city.

Martin is the editor of Bristol24/7 and author of 111 Places in Bristol that you Shouldn't Miss.

Melissa is a journalist, lecturer and author of Massive Attack: Out of the Comfort Zone.

zoom

zoom

Massive Attack:…

Mike is a local author who has worked on the Bristol Short Story Prize and published several books on the city, including the Bristol Miscellany.

Colin is a photographer whose books document the diversity and spirit of Bristol.

This will be your chance to listen to all four speakers, get a copy of their books signed and enjoy an evening celebrating Bristol.

BOOK HERE 

Celebrating Black Women Artists

 

My two latest pieces for the lovely and instructive website I AM HISTORY 

‘Mother Of Mankind’ Exhibition Celebrating Black Women Artists

by MELISSA CHEMAM

2021 is a great year of reckoning for many Black women artists in the UK, from the great winner of the 2017 Turner Prize Lubaina Himid to critically acclaimed Sonia Boyce, but also for young and upcoming artists. And an amazing set of exhibitions allows us to enjoy their powerful work this summer and autumn.

It starts with the exceptional Mother of Mankind exhibition on view at the House Of Fine Arts Mayfair space in London, which is free and open until 31 August. The Ghanaian gallerist Adora Mba especially curated it to feature 16 global Black women artists, with each of them portraying a unique sense of what Black female consciousness can be. Mother of Mankind is a reference to the African continent as the origin of humanity, the exhibition creates cross-continental dialogues around the subject of Black femininity.   

Adora Mba

Adora Mba is the founder and director of ADA \ contemporary art gallery, established in Accra, Ghana, in 2020. She felt privileged to “showcase the works of these remarkably talented artists in one of the cities I call home”, she said. The artists presented in this show are in the early days of their artistic careers, yet they are “already making waves and drawing attention amidst an industry, which tends to be more supportive of their male counterparts,” Adora added.  

Joined together in a virtual discussion, the artists’ works compose a reflection of different parts of the African continent and its diaspora, from Nigeria to South Africa, the UK, the USA, and Canada. Featured works by award-winning artists, such as Emma Prempeh (British artist based in London), Jamilla Okubo (an interdisciplinary artist exploring the intricacies of belonging to an American, Kenyan, and Trinidadian identity) and Adebunmi Gbadebo (born and based in New Jersey).

I visited the gallery on the 23rd of July and could immediately feel that the curator definitely united powerful pieces. This exhibition is the result of years of work with young women artists, from a curator with a deep interest in promoting Black painters.

With ‘Spectators’, Cece Phillips reverses the gaze, showing African women in a gallery looking at a painting depicting naked white people. Jamilla Okubo’s ‘I do not come to you as a reality. I come to you as The Myth’ shines with a bright red background, sunbeams and a golden bird overlooking its characters.

And Emma Prempeh’s portraits of missed relatives, including the artist’s grandmother, covered in gold, represent the feeling of separation haunting every transatlantic family. Curators from the arts organisation V.O Curations said of Prempeh’s paintings that her main subject, “family and generational continuity”, explores and questions relational ties in a search for spirituality enabling her to analyse existential questions about memory, ancestral ties, and human fear of death.

The shows display of work by a young generation of artists includes Ekene Emeka-Maduka (b. 1996 in Nigeria, working in Winnipeg, Canada), Cece Philips (self-taught visual artist based in London), Chinaza Agbor (from Texas, USA), Ayobola Kekere-Ekun and Marcellina Akpojotor (both from Nigeria), Brixton-based British-Nigerian artist Sola Olulode, Ohio-based Alexandria Couch, Muofhe Manavhela (multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Johannesburg), Cinthia Sifa Mulanga (b. in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997), Mookho Ntho (from Lesotho), Bria Fernandes (USA), Sophia Oshodin (self-taught figurative storytelling painter based in London), Damilola Onosowbo Marcus (from Lagos), Nigerian British artist Tobi Alexandra Falade and Dimakatso Mathopa (b. in 1995 in Mpumalanga, South Africa).

Some of these artists will also be part of the 1-54 London African Art Fair in London in October 2021.

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Lubaina Himid And Sonia Boyce, Pioneers Of Black British Art

The pioneering Lubaina Himid and Sonia Boyce paved the way for Black women artists in Britain. Both have incredible work on display this year that you absolutely must see. 

Sonia Boyce

Sonia Boyce’s exhibition In The Castle Of My Skin (11 June 2021 – 12 September 2021) is currently on show at MIMA – the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Next year she will also be the first Black female artist to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale.

Boyce works with a variety of media – drawing, print, photography, video and audio. Born in 1962 in Islington, London, in a British Afro-Caribbean family, she was always drawing as a child, and at 17 decided to study art, joining a Foundation Course in Art & Design at East Ham College of Art and Technology in 1979, before starting a BA in Fine Art at the prestigious Stourbridge College in the West Midlands. Soon, Sonia took part in the wider Black British cultural “renaissance”, a movement that arose out of Margaret Thatcher’s conservatism, with the likes of Eddie Chambers and Horace Ové.

In 1982, she attended the first national conference of Black artists and met Lubaina Himid, then a leading figure promoting the work of Black women artists. In 1985, Himid selected some of Boyce’s works for the exhibition The Thin Black Line, at the ICA. In 1987, at only 25, Boyce had her first drawing bought by Tate Modern, Missionary Position II, becoming the first British Black female artist to enter the collection. Since the 1990s, her work has been largely exhibited in the UK and abroad. 

Lubaina Himid’s next exhibition will land at the Tate Modern in London on 25 November 2021. Born in Zanzibar in 1954, she moved to Britain as a child with her parents in the 1960s and grew up in London. She studied theatre design, before entering the Royal Art College. From then, she never stopped supporting other Black artists’ debuts, including Sonia Boyce, Sutapa Biswas, Claudette Johnson, Veronica Ryan and Ingrid Pollard.

These past five years, she received superb praises for her wonderful exhibitions Navigating Charts, Naming The Money and Invisible Strategies. The pieces addressed the trauma and memory of slavery, touring the UK for year. “I was, very early on, a political teenager,” Lubaina Himid told me a few years ago. “In the 80s, the political situation was extreme in the UK for minorities. Working with Black artists was luckily never a lonely path: We did some early collaborative exhibitions with the Black Art Group, the Black Art Gallery in London, Nottingham, and Bristol. It was the opposite of lonesome. But it was a battle.” 

 This is still true today. But these pioneers are now seconded by a new generation, as vivid and creative. 

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Summary of exhibition details below:

• Sonia Boyce, ‘In The Castle Of My Skin’ is at the MIMA - Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art from 11 June 2021 to 12 September 2021 

• Lubaina Himid’s next exhibition at the Tate Modern in London opens on 25 November 2021 - 3rd July 2022