BAM - Black Artists and Modernism (Re-submission)

Lead Research Organisation: University of the Arts London
Department Name: CCW Grad School

Abstract

Artists of African and Asian descent have been making art in the UK at least since the early twentieth century. However, despite this longstanding situation, a problem exists where art criticism continues to serve the art-works of these artists inadequately. A peculiar kind of eclipsing has taken place where instead of considering and talking directly about the work, the discussions have emphasised the ethnicity of the artist, and the general problematics of race and identity politics within the art establishment, thus deflecting attention away from how these art-works relate to or have influenced the story of twentieth century art.

Coalesced under the term 'Black-British', this term can be considered as 'a metaphor for a political circumstance prescribed by struggles against economic exploitation and cultural domination: a state of consciousness that people of various pigmentations have experienced, empathized with, and responded to.' (Powell, 1997: 10) Here, the research will aim to elucidate a critical perspective on the complexities of trying to draw essentialist conclusions about the nature of a practice on the basis of national origin or diasporic affiliation.

Black Artists and Modernism, BAM for short, is a 3-year research programme that will investigate the often-understated connections as well as points of conflict between Black-British artists' practice and the art-works' relationship to modernism. Here, the research sees modernism as an unfinished project that is extended in postmodernism, and it will look at what Stuart Hall calls the "conjuncture" of generations of Black-British artists that were 'for' and 'against' modernist dictates.

By focussing our attention on art-works held in major public collections as well as key exhibitions, the research is designed to reach a wide audience from students and academics to a more general audience for the arts.

The design of the research will produce a wide-range of materials. These include:

An online multi-media website that will chronicle a national audit of art-works by Black-British artists held in public collections in the UK.

A series of essays, interviews and videos that discuss key art-works and their inclusion in important collections, as well as historically important exhibitions.

A series of public discussions will gather in places like Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester, London and Paris. Study days and symposia will be focused on signature art-works and exhibition histories looking at the impact of Black-British art on the broader narratives of modern and contemporary art practice.

New displays will appear at museums like the Tate, as a way to re-think the connection between the art-work and the story of modernism. Working with Illuminations, the arts and media specialists renowned for their arts programming (including the Turner Prize programmes on Channel Four), the aim is to record the unfolding research process. Documentaries will be made for a variety of public media platforms including broadcast television. At the end of the three-year programme an edited book 'The Blackness of Modernism: reconsidering art-works, exhibitions and collecting the work of Black-British artists' will be published by Duke University Press.

Planned Impact

The Blackness of Modernism: reconsidering art-works, exhibitions and collecting the works of Black British artists book, and the TV/documentary are both important outcomes, for different reasons. The book is the main academic outcome and the documentary is the main dissemination and impact outcome.

The Blackness of Modernism book will address the work of Black-British artists and asks how the art-works function beyond the frame of identity politics and institutional requirements of public engagement to encourage a reconsideration of modernism itself. The calibre of contributors would seek to include: Sarat Maharaj, Kobena Mercer, Courtney J Martin, David A Bailey, John Law, Lubaina Himid, Andrew Dewdney, Yinka Shonibare, Wenny Teo, Guy Brett, Sharon MacDonald, Irit Rogoff, Richard J Powell, Victoria Walsh, Gilane Tawadros and Sara Wajid.

BAM will benefit academics and students working in the fields of art practice, art history, visual studies, curatorial and museum studies, postcolonial and diaspora studies, gender and queer studies, and cultural studies. It is envisaged that artists, curators and cultural critics will benefit from the discussions that emerge during the public discussions (study days and symposia), as well as through the documents published on the BAM website, the broadcast documentary and the concluding book.

Through working with the Public Catalogue Foundation on the National Audit, the BAM database of entries will form hyper-links with the 'BBC Your Paintings' website, as well as contribute to the book.

Through the Curatorial and Museological strands a series of curated displays of art-works in public collections like the Tate, will benefit those museums and the audiences they serve.

BAM will have an intellectual and social impact on academia by providing greater critical resources to affect positive change in a culture of poor attainment differences between black and white students. There will be a considerable amount of original material in a field of practice that has been under-researched.

The Monographic and Documentary strands will generate learning resources that will be made accessible on the BAM website and will be developed as case studies in the publication. Social-media links to the BAM website will encourage active dialogues and feedback on the BAM programme.

At an extended level, the television documentary will aim to reach a significant audience, with the aim of uncovering the rich contributions that artists of African and Asian descent have made to twentieth century art: the building of this research will be a social asset to the wider community.

The effectiveness of the research programme will be evaluated by an Advisory Panel who will meet a total of seven times throughout the 3-years. The Advisory Panel will be made up of arts professionals and academics.

The planned public discussions (study days and symposia) will test the robustness of the research strands. There will be ten public events in years one and two of the programme, taking place across the UK and culminating in a symposium in France. The practices and discussions that have occurred in the UK, particularly since the post-war period, are internationally viewed as paradigm-shifting. As such the symposium in France will seek to exploit and extend these debates with academics and cultural commentators across Europe.

At the beginning of the research the team will receive oral history training to learn about the technical, theoretical and ethical issues concerned with documenting lived experience. Each researcher is expected to upload interviews (audio or transcripts) to the BAM website.

The research team will also work with Karen di Franco to set up a database for the National Audit entries. Karen will advise on the database architecture, and the structuring of the data-sets.
 
Title BAM Display: Gavin Jantjes, Korabra Series display, Herbert Museum (2016) 
Description The Korbara series display is a curatorial product within the BAM project. Four of seven paintings that make up the series were brought together to create a special display at the Herbert Museum as a curatorial intervention in the Museum's collection and display narrative. A set of interpretive texts (artwork labels, display information board, contextual information pamphlet and audio guide) were produced to accompany the display and the re-reading of the works in the collection. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact The artworks in the Korabra series are held by a number of Museums in the West Midlands, and this project has brought some of those works together. In addition, what became apparent in reading how the paintings held by the Herbert Museum were discussed in the interpretive text, a re-writing of the artist's relationship to art practice and art history needed to be underlined. The re-writing of the interpretive text, thus aimed at reinstating the artworks' relationship to modernism, and not just identity and sociological issues. In addition, the artworks were created in Coventry as a commission initiated by the Coventry West Indian Association, and the project was able to re-establish a relationship between the Association and the Museum. 
URL http://www.theherbert.org/whats-on/events-exhibitions/korabra-gavin-jantjes
 
Title BAM Display: Now! Now! In more than one place 
Description Now! Now! In more than one place (6-15 October 2016), was a display that accompanied the London conference Now & Then Here & There: Black Artists & Modernism at Chelsea College of Arts and Tate Britain. The conference (6-8 October 2016) addressed the understated connections and points of contention between Black-British artists' practice and the work's relationship to modernist histories. An urge to re-assess the legacies of Black-British artistic practice within a wider discourse of critical themes since the twentieth century, bridged both the conference and the display. As the title might suggest, Now! Now! In more than one place takes up contradictory positions: as a refrain - in a musical sense, as well as to 'trouble' set boundaries and scold; or, could be read as an insistence on immediacy and presence. A combination of works, including painting, photography, drawing, print, video installation, sculpture and publications are brought together spanning the second half of the twentieth century to the present. Spatial and temporal relationships unfold with themes that address a sense of place, or invite us to re-think representations of the body and identities beyond the binaries often cited in relation to race, sexuality and gender. The featured artists were Ajamu, Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom, Mohini Chandra, Neil Conroy/Lesley Sanderson, Yassmin V Foster, Sheila Ghelani, Ope Lori, Althea McNish, Yeu-Lai Mo, Eugene Palmer, Bharti Parmar, Hetain Patel, Vong Phaophanit/Claire Oboussier, Ingrid Pollard, Denis Williams, and Verdi Yahooda. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact The display was attended by approximately 500 visitors over the period of 9 days. This included the conference delegates, as well as students and arts professionals. 
URL http://www.blackartistsmodernism.co.uk/2016/08/05/1132/
 
Title Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition, Manchester Art Gallery (24 May 2018 - 22 April 2019) 
Description Through the work of more than 40 artists, Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination- Repetition considers how public museums reflect and shape our collective imagination, and examines how exhibitions can affect these shared narratives. This exhibition shows how artworks can nurture new stories if they are shown in ways beyond the limited frames of biography and identity. Curated by Hammad Nasar (Senior Research Fellow, BAM) with Kate Jesson (Curator, Manchester Art Gallery) the exhibition comprises of more than 70 works and archival documents ranging from the 18th to the 21st century, Speech Acts is drawn primarily from four public collections: Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford, John Rylands Library (The University of Manchester), Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth. It has been developed as part of, and in conversation with Black Artists and Modernism. An exhibition guide, free to visitors, was created to accompany the exhibition. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact There have been three notable exhibition reviews: 'Why Are So Many Great Artworks Acquired by Museums Locked Away in Storage?', Kadish Morris, Frieze magazine, November 2018. 'Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition at the Manchester Art Gallery', Stephanie Bailey, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 2018 'Speech Acts at Manchester Art Gallery', Ilaria Puri Purini, Contemporary Art Society, October 2018 Plus, the opening of the exhibition was filmed by the BBC and featured in the 'Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain's Hidden Art History' documentary programme. 
URL http://manchesterartgallery.org/exhibitions-and-events/exhibition/speech-acts/
 
Description The research has continued to find discrepancies between the way an artist is represented in a public collection, and how their practice is set apart from their peers. There will be further discussions with museum curators and other experts in the field to elaborate on our findings. There are continued discussions about the nature of the BAM website and compliance with digital accessibility.
Exploitation Route As a consequence of the final study day for museum curators, the discussions on the day and subsequently enquiries indicate that there is much more work to be done in collaboration with museums and on the audit work begun by BAM.
Sectors Education

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

 
Description In year 1, there was a launch event to invite practitioners to learn more about the BAM project; a series of media interviews which gathered wider support and interest; and a symposium at the Bluecoat on exhibition histories, followed by a conference at Tate Britain on modernist frameworks in year 2. A third conference took place at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (NL), in the final year. Several study days on specific artists and artworks in public collections have also been generative and discursive. All events were well attended and generated a wealth of material that the project team developed into journal articles, book chapters, a guest-edited journal issue and a co-edited e-publication. Three displays took place: the first at the Herbert Museum, Coventry; the second accompanied Tate conference; a final display was curated at Manchester Art Gallery and brought together works from four public collections in the north of England. This was a major exhibition which extended beyond the end of the project, attracting c.700,000 visitors (May 2018- April 2019). Publications from all three displays were made freely available. A BBC documentary was broadcast on national television about the BAM research, leading to many enquiries from academic institutions, who were advised to subscribe to BOB to access the programme. Figures received from the BBC suggest that 160,000 viewers watched the first broadcast (30 July 2018, 9pm). It was available on iPlayer throughout August 2018 attracting an additional 31,100 views, and a repeat broadcast gained a viewership of 4,700 (17 Sept 2018, 1am). The programme was repeated again on 11 June 2019 at 1am, 02 July 2020 at 11pm and 18 January 2022 at 12.30am; updated figures have not been obtained. The BAM project informs the current £3M AHRC TaNC project which involves 3 members of the BAM team (2021-2024).
First Year Of Impact 2016
Sector Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural

 
Description Art Fund Grant
Amount £10,933 (GBP)
Organisation Art Fund 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2016 
End 05/2018
 
Description Paul Mellon Curatorial Fellowship
Amount £10,000 (GBP)
Organisation Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2018 
End 05/2018
 
Title BAM Public Collections Audit 
Description Amongst the many strands of research taking place within the Black Artists & Modernism project is the audit of artworks by black artists in public collections, led by Dr. Anjalie Dalal-Clayton. The audit seeks to determine in which publicly-funded collections one can find artworks by artists of African, Caribbean, Asian and MENA Region descent who were born in, lived, worked or studied in the UK. The BAM audit has been underway since July 2016. 11 major national and 19 regional municipal collections have been (or are in the process of being) audited during this time, with details of over 2000 artworks by around 400 artists having been gathered. At present, the data is being prepared for critical analysis, resulting in an essay about museums and the collecting of works by black artists, and also for upload to an online database, hosted on the project's website. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact At the start of the project the BAM team decided, in the spirit of transparency and in order to generate interest in the project, to share the audit findings as they came in. A simple online database was therefore built at the start of the research. Within a few weeks of the audit research, however, it became clear that the initial design and structure of the database would not be fit for purpose - it was not sensitive to the increasingly complicated nature of the data and could only be populated manually (i.e. field by field). With the number of artworks far exceeding our expectations, it was essential to enable the uploading of data several fields at a time, and tens (or sometimes hundreds) of artworks at a time. This and other changes were therefore made to the 'back-end' of the database, as and when required. This made its structure and operation highly complicated and resulted in the misrepresentation of data when searches were run. In April 2017, the BAM team took the decision to remove the database from the public side of the website until the audit research concluded and the complete dataset was ready. This would allow for a new, fit for purpose database to be built, with improved search functionality, search speed, overall appearance, and with additional functions such as exporting of search results and links to images on the websites of participating museums and galleries. As of March 2018, the data collecting phase is close to completion and the new database is due to be re-launched to the public in May 2018. 
URL http://www.blackartistsmodernism.co.uk/black-artists-in-public-collections/
 
Description Bluecoat Gallery - The Work Between Us symposium (January 2016) 
Organisation The Bluecoat
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The Work Between Us conference organised by Anjalie Dalal-Clayton at the Bluecoat Gallery brought together twelve speakers to look at exhibition histories, in particular The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Postwar Britain which debuted at the Hayward in 1989, and subsequently travelled to Manchester. This exhibition gave the BAM team the opportunity to look at other significant exhibitions that had taken place in the North West region. The Bluecoat proved an important site for this discussion, having contributed to some of the significant exhibitions that have given impetus to the BAM research.
Collaborator Contribution The Bluecoat were able to provide to offer support through staffing of the symposium, admin and overheads, Bryan Biggs the Director of Bluecoat was a speaker at the symposium, their were overhead costs and the Bluecoat employed their marketing and social media outlets to advertise the event.
Impact It is the intention of the BAM project to publish some of the papers that emerged during the symposium. This is still work in progress.
Start Year 2016
 
Description FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France - Nil Yalter seminar (January 2017) 
Organisation FRAC Lorraine
Country France 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The Nil Yalter seminar, organised by Sophie Orlando brought together several speakers to look at the work of Nil Yalter in the FRAC Lorraine collection.
Collaborator Contribution The FRAC Lorraine provided staff support and the venue for the seminar, as well as participating in the session.
Impact The seminar discussion is being written up by Sophie Orlando and will form part of the basis for the upcoming Pan-European conference to take place at the end of 2017.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Institute of International Visual Art - David Medalla Study Day (April 2017) 
Organisation Institute of International Visual Art
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The David Medalla Study Day (April 2017) took place at the Stuart Hall Library, was conceived by Sophie Orlando and was programmed by Sonia Boyce as a significant part of the BAM project. It consisted of researching on particular aspects of the artist's practice during the 1960s and 1970s. The day drew attention to resources held in the Iniva collection. Scholars, artists and curators were invited to attend. These included: Nick Aikens (curator, Van Abbemuseum), Eva Bentcheva (art historian), Jane England (artist and gallerist), Beth Hughes (curator, Arts Council Collection), Annie Kwan (independent curator), Lynn MacRitchie (artist), Lucy Steeds (art historian), Gilane Tawadros (art historian and Director of DACS), Grant Watson (independent curator) and Isobel Whitelegg (art historian). A report on the day has been written by Naomi Bulliard and has been posted to the Iniva website.
Collaborator Contribution BAM worked with Iniva on the David Medalla study day (April 2017) at the Stuart Hall Library. Iniva provided the venue, staff support, shared hospitality costs, attended programming meetings and supplied an index of archival holdings available in the library for all of the attendees.
Impact The assessment of the discussions that emerged from the study day are still ebing processed amongst the BAM team, and it is hoped will contribute to the proposed BAM publication. Two papers presented: Eva Bentcheva 'When Attitudes Became Form: Conversing between David Medalla's practices and Harald Szeemann's vision of 'Concept-based Art'; and, Sonia Boyce 'Unconventional Sculpture and Queering 'Women's Work' in A Stitch in Time (1968-1972)' were re-presented at the Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, International Framings: Situating Black Artists and Modernism in Europe conference at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. These papers are due to be published as an e-publication in the summer of 2018.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) - Li Yuan-chia Study Day (February 2017) 
Organisation Institute of International Visual Art
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The Li Yuan-chia study day (February 2017) took place at the Stuart Hall Library and was conceived and programmed by Marlene Smith as a significant part of the BAM project. It consisted of researching on particular aspects of the artist's practice. The day drew attention to resources held in the Iniva collection and made references to the artist's own interest in building institutional structures. Invited scholars, students and professional practitioners were invited to attend. Speakers included: Hilary Floe, susan pui san lok, Marlene Smith, Gilane Tawardos, Yu Wei and Andrew Wilson. Participants included: Melanie Keen, Nick Sawyer and Nicola Simpson.
Collaborator Contribution BAM worked with Iniva on the Li Yuan-chia study day (February 2017) at the Stuart Hall Library. Iniva provided the venue, staff support, shared hospitality costs, attended programming meetings and supplied an index of material available in the Library for all of the attendees.
Impact The assessment of the discussions that emerged from the study day are still being processed amongst the BAM team.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) - Lubaina Himid study day (June 2016) 
Organisation Institute of International Visual Art
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The Lubaina Himid study day (June 2016) took place at the Stuart Hall Library and was conceived and programmed by Marlene Smith as a significant part of the BAM project. It consisted of researching on particular aspects of the artist's practice. The day drew attention to resources held in the Iniva collection and made references to the artist's own interest in archives. Invited scholars, students and professional practitioners were invited to attend. Speakers included: Jane Beckett, Christine Eyene, Evan Ifekoya, Lubaina Himid and Dorothy Price. Participants included: Emma Dexter, Griselda Pollock and Sam Thorne.
Collaborator Contribution BAM worked with Iniva on the Lubaina Himid study day (June 2016) at the Stuart Hall Library. Iniva provided the venue, staff support, put BAM in touch with a great photographer to document the proceedings, shared hospitality costs, attended programming meetings and supplied an index of material available in the Library for all of the attendees.
Impact The assessment of the discussions that emerged from the study day are still being processed amongst the BAM team.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) - Now & Then... Here & There BAM conference, Chelsea College of Arts/Tate Britain (6-8 October 2016) 
Organisation Institute of International Visual Art
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The conference sought to explore a series of recurring themes to re-assess the legacies of Black-British artists' practice, by asking the question 'How do we come to know the work of art?'. Conversely, 'How do we come to forget the work of art?', and what procedures sanction and legitimate those knowledges? Alongside speaker sessions, there were also delegate focus sessions that returned everyone's attention to art objects on display (Tate Britain and Chelsea College of Art). The conference convenors: Sonia Boyce and David Dibosa. organised three of the four panel sessions and break-out delegate sessions.
Collaborator Contribution Iniva collaborated by convening the last of the four conference sessions: Critical Vocabularies. The session addressed the shifting vocabulary of 'internationalism' within art criticism, artistic and curatorial practice, and how new narratives of 'transnationalism' have been generated. Iniva's contribution to the conference broadly covers staff time, admin , overheads and inclusion in their marketing & social media campaign.
Impact The BAM team are in the process of assessing the material that has been generated by the conference.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) - Now! Now! In more than one place display 
Organisation Institute of International Visual Art
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The Now! Now! In more than one place display (6-15 October 2016) at Chelsea College of Arts - UAL, was a cross-generational group show consisting of art works from sixteen artists curated by Sonia Boyce to accompany the Now & Then... Here & There BAM conference at Tate Britain. As part of the display a newspaper publication was made, with an interview between Sonia Boyce and Melanie Keen (Iniva Director), a series of pages where the artists discussed their works and a commissioned essay by art historian Allison Thompson giving an historical account of the work of Denis Williams.
Collaborator Contribution Iniva were involved in putting together the display publication. This involved several editorial meetings, a foreword by Melanie Keen, sourcing a designer to put together the publication and organising the print run.
Impact A publication was distributed to conference delegates and was available free for visitors to the display.
Start Year 2016
 
Description MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, France - Mathieu K Abbonnenc seminar (May 2017) 
Organisation Museum of Contemporary Art of Val de Marne
Country France 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The Mathieu K Abbonnenc seminar organised by Sophie Orlando, took place at the MAC VAL museum in Vitry-sur-Seine in May 2017, and looked at the work of Mathieu K Abbonnenc held in their collection as a starting point for a discussion.
Collaborator Contribution The MAC VAL provided staff support and offered their venue as the site for the seminar. Curatorial staff from the museum were also participants in the event.
Impact Sophie Orlando has written a paper as a result of this seminar and two other seminars that have been organised in continental Europe (NIl Yalter and Stanley Brouwn). The seminars and paper framed the pan-European conference 'Conceptualism - Intersectional REadings, International Framings: Situating Black Artists in Modernism in Europe' at the Van Abbemuseum in December 2017.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Stanley Brouwn seminar (March 2017) 
Organisation Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Country Netherlands 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The Stanley Brouwn seminar organised by Sophie Orlando, took place at the Stedelijk Museum in March 2017, looked at the work of Stanley Brouwn held in their collection as a starting point for a discussion.
Collaborator Contribution The Stedelijk Museum have provided staff support and offered their venue as the site for the seminar. Curatorial staff from the museum were also participants in the event.
Impact Sophie Orlando will write up the discussions that emerged as a report, and this will feed into the forthcoming Pan-European conference that is due to take place at the end of 2017.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Tate Britain - Now & Then... Here & There conference (October 2016) 
Organisation Tate Britain
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The Now & Then... Here & There conference at Tate Britain (7 & 8 October 2016) was a two day conference that brought together several speakers to look at the contributions made by African and Asian artists in Britain. The conference was a mix of formal presentations, panel discussions and break out sessions.
Collaborator Contribution Tate Britain gave their support by greatly reducing the costs of the conference, providing staff support and contributing through the BAM Advisory discussions a great deal of input into the scope and discursive aspects of the conference framework. Curators from Tate also gave presentations and were participants in the break out sessions.
Impact The material that was generated at the conference is currently under review by the BAM research team. Subsequent discussions with Tate curatorial staff are are planned about interpretive texts on the work of artists in their collection will take further some of the issues that were raised.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands - Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, International Framings: Situating Black Artists and Modernism in Europe (December 2017) 
Organisation Van Abbemuseum
Country Netherlands 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Shifting perspectives on black artists and modernism beyond British and transatlantic frames, the 'Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, International Framings: Situating Black Artists and Modernism in Europe' conference (7-9 December 2017) sought to highlight the specificities and the limits of the discourses on 'Blackness' and 'Conceptualism' in the context of Europe. Devised by Sophie Orlando (BAM researcher) and convened in collaboration with Susan Lok (BAM Co-Investigator) and Nick Aikens (Curator, Van Abbemuseum) the conference looked at the practices of artists based, or with long-term connections to Europe. The aim was to open up debates around intersectional readings of artists' practices and artwroks that shift the interpretive paradigms from the question of how artists may be expected to represent identity politics, to how they arguably produce identity politics through their work. Returning to the materiality of artworks and their conditions of display, interpretation and consumption, the conference asked how might we re-read and re-frame the imagined canon of conceptual art in Europe?
Collaborator Contribution The Van Abbemuseum provided staff support to help frame and deliver the conference and offered their venue as the site for the conference. They worked with the BAM team to on all aspects of the conference programming and marketing. Museum staff were also participants in the event.
Impact L'Internationale, a confederation of six European modern and contemporary art institutions, has a publishing wing that will create an e-publication from the conference papers. This is due to be published in the summer of 2018.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Art of the Nation, Art UK - five artists choose at the London Art Fair, January 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Art UK invited me to be part of a 30th-anniversary celebration at the London Art Fair where they created an exhibition from the nation's public art collections. Five artists were invited and asked to make a selection of five works from the Art UK website. My starting point was a work by Rasheed Araeen titled Boo/69 for which he won second prize at the John Moores Painting Prize in 1969, and is owned by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. However, Boo/69 was unavailable because it was being shown in a retrospective exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum. The selection of works for Art of the Nation then became a riff, like keywords, from the title and the grid-like structure of Boo/69: Boo-Betty-Abstract-Grid. The colours orange and blue was another thematic thread. The display included the works of Winston Branch with West Indian, 1973, Rugby Art Gallery and Museums; James Cramb with White Grid, 1980, Merthyr Tydfil Leisure Trust; Bhajan Hunjan with One and the Many, 1996, Bradford Museums and Galleries; Clare Wardman with Light Tracking (Stringed Piece), 2006, Cornwall Council; and, Aubrey Williams with Eldorado, 1960, The University of York.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://artuk.org/about/blog/art-of-the-nation-sonia-boyce/page/1/view_as/grid
 
Description BAM Launch 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This was a launch event for the Black Artists and Modernism project, hosted by UAL. Invitees were mainly arts professionals including a producer from the BBC arts programming.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description BAM event (Gavin Jantjes display launch, Herbert Museum) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Gavin Jantjes, Korabra series paintings went on display at the Herbert Museum in Coventry on the 25th February 2016.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description BAM event (Gavin Jantjes, Korabra series study day, Herbert Museum) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A public study day on the Korabra series of paintings (1986) by artist Gavin Jantjes, was organised at the Herbert Museum. the main audience consisted of students and staff from the art-school in Coventry, as well as members of the general public. The discussion involved getting the audience to participate in a close reading of the art-works.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description BAM media coverage (Artist Newsletter) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This was a review and interview of a BAM event: 'The Work Between Us' at the Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/black-artists-and-modernism-there-are-some-remarkable-stories-to-be-disco...
 
Description BAM media coverage (Guardian newspaper) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact The Guardian newspaper created a feature interview about the BAM project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.pressreader.com/@Anjalie_Clayton/A5NMF5DDZR95
 
Description BAM media coverage (The Arts Newspaper) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact The Arts Newspaper created a feature interview on the BAM project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://theartnewspaper.com/news/news/black-british-artists-to-be-written-into-art-history-/
 
Description BAM media coverage (Times - Higher Educational Supplement) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact The Times - Higher Educational Supplement created a feature interview about the BAM project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://www.timeshighereducation.com/people/interview-professor-sonia-boyce-university-of-the-arts-l...
 
Description BBC Radio 3, Free Thinking 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact The influence of the British Black Art movement.
Free Thinking: Artists Sonia Boyce, Isaac Julien, Eddie Chambers and Harold Offeh talk to Anne McElvoy about their art and the influence of the British Black Art movement - which began around the time of the First National Black Art Convention in 1982 organised by the Blk Art Group and held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. Eddie Chambers has written Roots and Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain and Black Artists in British Art: A History since the 1950s. He teaches at the University of Texas, Austin. Sonia Boyce is Professor at Middlesex University, a Royal Academician and will also have a solo show at the ICA later this year. She is one of the recipients of a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award. She is also the Principal-Investigator of the Black Artists & Modernism project. Isaac Julien is showing Other Destinies at the Royal Ontario Museum from January and shows at Victoria Miro Gallery. Harold Offeh is an artist, curator and senior lecturer in Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University. His work Covers will feature in Untitled: art on the conditions of our time. Nottingham Contemporary's The Place Is Here brings together around 100 works by over 30 artists and collectives spanning painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video and archival displays from the 1980s. It runs from 04 Feb - 30 Apr 2017. New Art Exchange's exhibition, Untitled: art on the conditions of our time, runs from 14 Jan - 19 Mar 2017 and features 12 British artists each with ties to Africa.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088jl62
 
Description Black Art Matters: Donald Rodney, BBC Radio 4 (June 2017) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact A 30-minute radio documentary on the artist Donald Rodney. Sonia Boyce reviews current interest in black British art through the life of Donald Rodney (1961-1998) the work he left behind, his fellow artists, friends and family, and Auto-Icon - a digital version of himself. The programme includes the voices of Nick Aikens, Lisa Beauchamp, June Givanni, Charlotte Holmes, Mike Phillips, Keith Piper, Iris Rodney, Jacqui Rodney, Ian Sargeant and Marlene Smith. The documentary was broadcast twice, in June 2017 and repeated in February 2018, and has been heard by tens of thousands of listeners, both in the UK and internationally. The documentary also exists as a BBC podcast.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vzrth
 
Description Community Arts? Learning from the Legacy of Artists' Initiatives 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This daylong event at the Blackie, organised by Liverpool Biennial, brings together distinguished thinkers and practitioners from the field of community arts, in order to discuss the legacy of such practices in the light of a renewed interest in socially engaged art. This event will re-open conversations and instigate new ones, ensuring that important work undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s continues to resonate.

Speakers: Assemble, Ania Bas, Sonia Boyce, Jason E. Bowman, Polly Brannan, Anna Colin, Anna Cutler, Rosie Cooper, Janna Graham, Granby 4 Streets Community Land Trust, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Homebaked, Sophie Hope, Nina Edge, Bill Harpe, Wendy Harpe, Loraine Leeson, Angela McKay, Andrea Phillips, Laura Raicovich, Alan Read, Frances Rifkin, Sally Tallant, Nato Thompson and Ed Webb-Ingall.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.biennial.com/events/community-arts-conference
 
Description Conference paper, 'The Work Between The Words Between The Work Between Us' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 'Now and then Here and there' was a conference organised by the AHRC Black Artists and Modernism research project. Convened by Professor Sonia Boyce and Dr David Dibosa, the conference opened with a keynote from Professor Kobena Mercer, followed by two days' of papers and presentations from: Nick Aikens, Dr Rizvana Bradley, Dr Anjalie Dalal-Clayton, Dr David Dibosa, Dr Rachel Garfield, Prof. Paul Goodwin, Prof. Isaac Julien, Permindar Kaur, Dr susan pui san lok, Dr Courtney J Martin, Dr Dorothy Price, Vong Phaophonit and Claire Oboussier, Dr Elizabeth Robles, Prof. Irit Rogoff, Dr Lucy Steeds. 'Now and then Here and there' coincided by a display curated by Professor Sonia Boyce, called 'Now! Now!' at the Triangle and Cookhouse Spaces, Chelsea Colleage of Art, UAL.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.blackartistsmodernism.co.uk/
 
Description Dearly Beloved: transitory relations and the queering of women's work in David Medalla's A Stitch in Time (1967-1972) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact In this paper 'Dearly Beloved' presented at the Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, International Framings: Black Artists and Modernism in Europe at the Van Abbemuseum, I situate 'A Stitch in Time' (1967-1972) by David Medalla, in and amongst the major upheavals that were taking place in art and in the wider social sphere during the 1960s. Most notably, the paper suggests a defining break that was being made from the dominant New Sculpture of the post-war period towards a greater investigation of art practice as social augmentation. In my discussion on 'A Stitch in Time', I remark on the artwork's aim of bringing people together and the gap in its critical reception that has not yet considered the artwork's employment of what was once considered 'women's work', in the shape of needlecraft, in order to gather participants. The paper asked, to what extent was 'A Stitch in Time' in dialogue with feminist and other conceptual critiques of the hierarchical values invested in art-making of the time. I argue that the artwork acts as a transitory object that brings people together, as opposed to a transitional object fundamentally linked to the mother's body. The intention is for this paper to be published by L'Internationale online as one of the conference papers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://vanabbemuseum.nl/en/programme/programme/conceptualism-intersectional-readings-international-...
 
Description From the Substrate to the Riverbed - Frank Bowling symposium paper, The Sea is History - Art and Black Atlantic Cultures, Haus der Kunst, Frankfurt, October 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact In the summer of 2017, Haus der Kunst mounted a comprehensive survey exhibition Frank Bowling: Mappa Mundi, including his monumental and mid-sized paintings. To accompany the exhibition, Haus der Kunst organised a symposium The Sea is History: Art and Black Atlantic Cultures to engage with not only Bowling's diasporic unconscious as an emigre, transnational and cosmopolitan artist but also sought to examine how his work upended various modernist pieties about pure immanence that surrounds formalist abstraction and its many criticisms within late modernism. As part of this symposium, I gave a paper From the Substrate to the Riverbed looking at Bowling's well-documented involvement in mid-twentieth century modernist painterly discourses, taking the vantage point of his performative engagement with the gladiatorial field of canonical abstract painting and his enactments on the surface of the painted surface, the substrate. This was coupled with an exploration of the less tangible effect of the work into the realm of the symbolic. This paper will be published in a special issue of NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art in the autumn of 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://youtu.be/xUTHu-97_RU
 
Description Li Yuan-chia study day 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact The Li Yuan-chia study day was divided into three discussions: i) what the work does; ii) contextual questions about practice; iii) the museological frame. Yu Wei was invited to discuss whether Li Yuan-chia is the first conceptual artist, and how to reconcile his relationship to objects and structures with ideas about conceptualism.
In her 2014 essay Hilary Floe discusses the exhibition 'POPA at MOMA: Pioneers of Part-Art' held at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford in 1971. Hilary revisited her essay drawing on factors that considered Li Yuan-chia's contribution to the exhibition in relation to his peers.
'Hanging Disc Toys' (circa 1980) were purchased by Tate in 2004, recently displayed at Tate Modern. Other recent exhibitions from his body of work includes 'Li Yuan-chia' at Richard Saltoun Gallery and 'Performing No Thingness' at East Gallery Norwich University of the Arts. Marlene Smith and susan pui san lok discussed the modernist criticality of the work, mediated and unmediated.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.iniva.org/blog/2017/03/where-can-we-place-the-artistic-practice-of-li-yuan-chia-in-relati...
 
Description Lubaina Himid study day 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact Focused on artist Lubaina Himid, this Study Day aimed to generate new readings of the artist's work, invite personal responses and inspire continuing dialogue. It was a
collaboration between BAM (Black Artists and Modernism) and Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts). One of the main premises of the BAM project is that the work of black artists is over determined via sociological readings that leave this body of work outside of art history. The BAM study days - this is the third in a series of artist-focused study days and the first in collaboration with Iniva - was an opportunity to re-address the balance.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.blackartistsmodernism.co.uk/2016/06/28/lubaina-himid-study-day/
 
Description Nil Yalter seminar 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The seminar on the work of Nil Yalter was organised by Sophie Orlando at FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France, and sought to interrogate the often used vocabulary around the multi-media work of Nil Yalter beyond discussions on anthropology and cosmopolitanism. The seminar also looked at the representations of her work in public collections (Tate, FRAC Lorraine). Participants included: Mikeala Assolent; Fabienne Dumont; Paul Goodwin and Sophie Orlando.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Now & Then, Here & There: Black Artists & Modernism conference (Tate Britain) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Now & Then, Here & There conference addressed the understated relationships between Black-British artists' practice and the work of art's relationship to Modernism.
An urge to reassess the legacies of Black-British artists' practice in the twentieth century and beyond has led to the posing of several questions. Not least amongst them, questions that turn our attention to the varied forms of production throughout that period: 'How do we come to know the work of art?' Conversely, 'How do we come to forget the work of art?' Such questions formed the basis of an inquiry about the kinds of knowledge that becomes sanctioned and legitimated in respect of Black artists' work. To take forward a series of discussions, the conference engaged a set of inter- related arenas of debate, including: artists' practices; art history; curatorial and museum studies; art criticism. Alongside speakers sessions, there were focus sessions that attended to art objects, and the knowledges that mediate them. Throughout, the conference retains an engagement with the practices of Black artists and the ways in which they can be repositioned in relation to Modernism. Conference speakers included: Nick Aikens; Rizvana Bradley; Anjalie Dalal-Clayton; Rachel Garfield; David Dibosa; Paul Goodwin; Isaac Julien; Permindar Kaur; Melanie Keen; susan pui san lok; Courtney J Martin; Kobena Mercer (keynote); Sandy Nairne; Vong Phaophanit & Claire Oboussier; Dorothy Price; Elizabeth Robles; Irit Rogoff; Lucy Steeds; and Zoe Whitley.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.blackartistsmodernism.co.uk/2016/12/12/nowthenherethere-session1-artistspractices/
 
Description Stanley Brouwn seminar 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The seminar on Stanley Brouwn was organised by Sophie Orlando at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and sought to interrogate Stanley Brown's specific, but varied artistic strategies in relation to conceptualism; the curatorial gaze and acquisition policies. Participants at the seminar included: Nick Aikens; Anjalie Dalal-Clayton; Paul Goodwin; Charl Landvreugd and Sophie Orlando.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description The Work Between Us: Black British Artists and Exhibition Histories 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact How do artists of African and Asian descent in Britain feature in the story of twentieth-century art?

This one-day symposium will unearth the stories behind exhibitions that have put the practices of African and Asian descent artists on Britain's cultural map. Lucy Steeds (Afterall journal), artists Sonia Boyce and Keith Piper, and international curator Paul Goodwin are amongst the speakers discussing ground-breaking exhibitions such as The Other Story, The Image Employed, and the 1992 Bluecoat-initiated project Trophies of Empire. The day will bring to light how these exhibitions came about, what their impact was and how the artworks in them have peppered and punctuated major developments in twentieth-century art.

Organised by AHRC research project Black Artists and Modernism, a partnership between University of the Arts London and Middlesex University.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/events/view/events/3252
 
Description This Much Is True: A Potted History of Afro-Asian Artists in London Throughout the Twentieth Century (keynote), Transnational Cities: Tokyo and London, Tate Britain (September 2017) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Transnational Cities: Tokyo and London was an international symposium that took place at Tate Britain and examined the cultural and historical connections between Tokyo and London and the intersections and points of contact among multiple cultures and artistic legacies. I was invited to give a keynote paper titled "This Much is True: A Potted History of Afro-Asian Artists in London Throughout the Twentieth Century'. In this keynote, I drew connections between a history of African and Asian artists who have contributed to the British art establishment - dating back as far as 1901, with figures like sculptor Edmonia Lewis, drawing on the Transnational Slade research project at the Slade School of Art, and led by Dr Amna Malik, which sought to examine the impact of art education and who had attended the Slade in the inter-war years, and concluding with The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-War Britain, curated by artist Rasheed Araeen that took place at the Hayward Gallery in 1989. The aim of the paper was to draw attention to the entangled histories of a diverse range of artists who had gained their reputations in London, and the interpretive frames that resist their contribution to British art history.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/conference/transnational-cities
 
Description Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain's Hidden Art History, BBC4 programme (July 2018) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Presented by BBC Arts correspondent Brenda Emmanus with artist and academic Sonia Boyce, 'Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain's Hidden Art History' uncovers hidden artworks by black-British artists held in storage or forgotten within the UK's public collections. The 60-minute film explores the rarely told, and fascinating history of artists of African and Asian descent, whose contribution to British art history has remained unrecognised for decades. The film's title is taken from archive footage of a small group of artists who organised 'The First National Black Art Convention' in Wolverhampton in 1982.
Originally broadcast on the 30th July 2018, and on BBC iPlayer for 30 days, the programme was so popular that the BBC re-issued it on iPlayer during September 2018 and organised a special screening at the Royal Academy.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/britains-hidden-art-history
 
Description Working with Public Collections Study Day (25 May 2018), Manchester Art Gallery 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Organised to engage with curators of museum collections, the 'Working with Public Collections Study Day' held at Manchester Art Gallery, focused on the research that the BAM team had conducted on public collections and their curation. The study day featured papers given by Anjalie Dalal-Clayton, Ella S. Mills, David Dibosa, Pamela Crawford, and Hammad Nasar with Kate Jesson (curator at Manchester Art Gallery). The day was facilitated by Museum Detox (Sona Datta and Vanessa Peterson) and the day was partly funded by Art Fund. The study day was the concluding event of the BAM project and accompanied the exhibition curated by Hammad Nasar with Kate Jesson 'Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition' at Manchester Art Gallery (May 2018 - April 2019).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.facebook.com/pg/blackartistsandmodernism/posts/