GHOSTS OF OUR PAST AND FUTURE

Rationale

I have always been interested in how the Black community has [or has not] custodianship over our heritage and how this impacts our sense of identity and belonging. This project aims to become the custodians of the ghosts of our past and look to the present and future to learn more about ourselves and, in some small way, experience a sense of community. As a community organiser and activist, I find social inclusion at the forefront of my work, and this commission seeks to engage with and amplify the voices of the Black community in Hull.

As a Black British woman whose family has strong links to the Caribbean, I have always been interested in heritage and the intersection of identity. Afro-Carribean identity is essential to me, and the culture has informed most of my experiences, yet I have not had a chance to explore this with other communities outside of my own. As a person whose family was likely brought to the Caribbean through slavery, I have issues with identity and a sense of belonging. This has affected my emotional and mental well-being, and many of the Black people I have spoken to feel the same. We have similar connecting stories, and this proposal seeks to explore that in more detail. As a direct response of my personal experiences, my experience at the museum and meeting some of the board members, I want to amplify the voices of some of the Caribbean community in Hull. There is space to amplify the voices of the Caribbean heritage and their experiences, as the museum [I feel] currently lacks those examples. Through this commission, I will further my previous work around identity and amplification whilst engaging a different local community from my own. I feel it is important not to see the Black experience as homogenous yet to explore and recognise that there is a collective experience in the context of the impact of the transatlantic slave trade.

Ghosts of Our Past and Future is my attempt to physically, metaphorically, and emotionally take up space within a museum through the use of multimedia (mainly audio and photography). My commission would consist of four to six large photography portraits displayed within the museum with a looped audio story featuring those photographed. I will interview each participant, and the results of those interviews will be edited into an audio piece. The audio will be played through one of the screens, and the screensaver will be a black screen with subtitles, so this is accessible to those with hearing impairment or audio cognition difficulties. I am particularly inspired by the work of John Akomfrah, whose work explores Black identity through the use of film and sound. Audio is a powerful and impactful way of storytelling, and it is accessible to many. My audio pieces are often non-linear narratives and instead concentrate on evoking emotion and feeling through voice, sound effects, and music (audio collage).

According to the book '70 Objeks & Tings', Caribbeans living in the UK in the early days of the Windrush era often had professional photos taken to send back home. The photos were meant to show family and friends that things were going well. I also wonder if it was a way (unconsciously) to recreate our history that was violently taken away from us.

One of the things I remember from my childhood is the endless amount of photographs that my mother took and still has to this day; this includes several photos of me surrounding (not an exaggeration) the walls of her living room. Documenting history seems extremely important in many Caribbean households, and my project is in keeping with this tradition.

Blues Parties and Sound Systems we birthed from racial prejudice and discrimination in England in the 1950s. Black people were not allowed to hire public spaces for social events, so they created their own with music, chat, and dance. Some DJs would often satirise the news and local events when the music played. The audio was and still is a powerful storytelling tool that my project will utilise.

The photography will be carried out by a Black photographer named Dami Fawehinmi. Although the photography is portraiture in nature, the style of the photoplay will be based on the participant's personality and identity. They are the agents of their own identity, which is to come through in the photographs and interviews. Space permitting, I would also like to display a map showing each participant's heritage. This map will be created by Dr Laura Braunholtz, who uses coding to create visual mapping.

While audio and photography will be the primary focus, I would also like to display Caribbean and African-themed objects throughout the museum, ideally borrowed from my Black community and the community in Hull mixed with items from my collection. These will be textiles, souvenirs, photographs, figurines, and so on, and they will be showcased alongside current museum objects as an extension of the space's heritage. These additions to the main work do not have to be in the commission, but they would bring a sense of continuity and response to the current displays.

Through the transatlantic slave trade, we, as Black British people, have profoundly experienced a deep sense of loss of heritage and identity, and we have been forced to forge our own. Ghosts of Our Past and Future aims to, in some small part, create a small but impactful cathartic exploration of this.