Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Explore the evolving nature of diasporic identity through art from Tate’s collection
Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference.
Stuart Hall
The term diaspora comes from an ancient Greek word meaning ‘to scatter’. Today it refers to people who have migrated from one part of the world to another, or come from families who have. This is true in one way or another of all of the artists included. The renowned cultural studies theorist Stuart Hall saw identity as being full of endless possibilities. Rooted in this outlook, Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation seeks to present a sense of pluralism, that all identities, beliefs and differences are accepted, respected and ongoing. Based around John Akomfrah’s film work about Hall, the display features works which defy predetermined or fixed notions of diasporic identity. This draws upon Hall’s ideas that our cultural identity is a matter of ‘becoming’, rather than simply ‘being’. The central idea in this display is that identities of ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class do not function around a singular axis of ‘difference’ and are instead constantly undergoing transformation. Rather than presenting diasporic cultures and identities as binding or singular, they are presented as complex unfinished conversations.
Collective memory and networks forged within and across diasporic groups are an important part of the connections between the artists featured here. Even where ruling classes and dominant cultures have the power to impose restricted world views, people and communities still find a way to express themselves in a way that is true to their own individual understanding of the world.
There is no singular order or chronology to the display. You are invited to make your own connections to and between the works: to look closely at what is distinctive in the subjects, as well as in the artworks themselves. Threads of thought connecting the artworks suggest themes such as migration, marginalisation, memory, kinship, celebration, healing and resilience. We hope you will discover meanings in many different ways, unsettling fixed narratives of nationhood and belonging and recognising that selfhood and identity can only come into existence through our relationships to others. Hall suggested that ‘The future belongs to the impure. The future belongs to those who are ready to take in a bit of the other, as well as being what they themselves are.’
Sonia Boyce OBE, From Tarzan to Rambo: English Born ‘Native’ Considers her Relationship to the Constructed/Self Image and her Roots in Reconstruction 1987
This photo-based work raises questions about the effect of the diaspora of the African peoples - their historical dispersion across the world through slavery and colonisation - on the identity and representation of black people. Boyce is the 'English born Native' of the title. The picture developed from a desire to consider the relationship between her own 'self-image' and the one offered by a predominantly white society through the mass media. The scale of the work and its reference to Hollywood heroes such as Tarzan and Rambo point to the power of film to perpetuate sterotypes. Photobooth portraits of the artist dominate the image. They refer in part to voodooo trance, often parodied in Hollywood films.
Gallery label, August 2004
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Linder, She/She 1981, printed 2007
She/She consists of fourteen black and white photographs, nine of which are portraits of Linder and the remaining five are photographs of short sections of text written in a typewriter font. The prints are presented in black frames, usually displayed in two horizontal rows of seven to be viewed in the sequence top row left to right, bottom row left to right, with the text pages interspersing the portraits. The photographs of Linder are by the Swiss photographer Christine Birrer, with whom Linder collaborated at this time on a number of different projects. The work was first produced in a booklet Pickpocket: SheShe 1981 to coincide with the release of a six-track cassette tape, Pickpocket, by the group Ludus, of which Linder was a member. The booklet format was slightly different to that originally conceived, and as it has now been printed and editioned. The fragments of text are written by Linder and taken from three of the songs on the cassette, Mutilate, The Fool and Mouthpiece. They refer to the themes of hiding, searching and finding evoked in the images.
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Hamad Butt, Transmission 1990
Transmission 1990 is an installation consisting of nine glass books resting on metal stands, each individually lit by its own ultraviolet light. The books are arranged in a circle on the floor, connected by electrical cabling, each of their nine glass pages turned in progressively ascending order. On the same page of each book the image of a single Triffid from the cover of John Wyndham’s novel The Day of the Triffids (1951), a creature bulbous at one end but with an agile, probing snout at the other, is etched into the glass. The effect created is an image of the Triffid that, although always discernible upon close inspection, moves in and out of visibility as the viewer moves around the circle. The single Triffid seems to rise to the surface of the page, taking on an almost phallic symbolism. Butt was fascinated by the image of the Triffid from Wyndham’s novel and the relationship this iconic book had with the unease of the social body. In the novel the Triffids pray upon an unsuspecting populous, blinded by an apparent meteor shower. Describing the Triffid, Butt wrote, ‘On the cover of the book, an image of a creature that is not anything as distant as the castrated male genitalia, yet it creeps to that dreaded desire as it takes the power of mobilisation itself.’ (Hamad Butt, ‘Apprehensions’, in Foster 1996, p.50.) In one of his working notebooks, part of Butt’s archive held at Tate, he wrote that, ‘The Triffid exists in exile. The alienated exile of the dangerous, ejaculating, contaminated pudenda,’ reflecting a personal exile and alienation felt by Butt himself.
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Keith Arnatt, Gardeners 1978–9
Gardeners 1978–9 is a large series of black and white photographs that depicts individuals standing outdoors in the gardens they tend, which vary in character from sprawling fields in the countryside to small urban front gardens. Although the gardeners’ poses, expressions and clothing differ, they are all shown full-length standing in the mid-ground of the scene and looking towards the camera. The selection of forty prints from this series in the Tate collection (Tate T13087–T13126) was made and exhibited in 1979 for Keith Arnatt’s solo exhibition at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. A different selection of prints was exhibited in his 1989 touring solo exhibition Rubbish and Recollections (Cambridge Darkroom; Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Ffotogallery, Cardiff). Arnatt took the photographs that make up this series during 1978 and 1979. To do so, he visited the sitters at their homes, photographing them in their own gardens. The series title, Gardeners, focuses the viewer’s attention on the gardeners rather than the gardens themselves, although the way in which Arnatt presents the individuals surrounded by the grass, foliage and sometimes concrete of their settings, with little else in view, suggests the intimate connection between the gardeners and their land. The repetitive nature of the composition and poses across each of the forty photographs also has the effect of drawing together a diverse group of people who have been photographed as a result of a shared hobby.
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Keith Arnatt, Gardeners 1978–9
Gardeners 1978–9 is a large series of black and white photographs that depicts individuals standing outdoors in the gardens they tend, which vary in character from sprawling fields in the countryside to small urban front gardens. Although the gardeners’ poses, expressions and clothing differ, they are all shown full-length standing in the mid-ground of the scene and looking towards the camera. The selection of forty prints from this series in the Tate collection (Tate T13087–T13126) was made and exhibited in 1979 for Keith Arnatt’s solo exhibition at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. A different selection of prints was exhibited in his 1989 touring solo exhibition Rubbish and Recollections (Cambridge Darkroom; Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Ffotogallery, Cardiff). Arnatt took the photographs that make up this series during 1978 and 1979. To do so, he visited the sitters at their homes, photographing them in their own gardens. The series title, Gardeners, focuses the viewer’s attention on the gardeners rather than the gardens themselves, although the way in which Arnatt presents the individuals surrounded by the grass, foliage and sometimes concrete of their settings, with little else in view, suggests the intimate connection between the gardeners and their land. The repetitive nature of the composition and poses across each of the forty photographs also has the effect of drawing together a diverse group of people who have been photographed as a result of a shared hobby.
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Keith Arnatt, Gardeners 1978–9
Gardeners 1978–9 is a large series of black and white photographs that depicts individuals standing outdoors in the gardens they tend, which vary in character from sprawling fields in the countryside to small urban front gardens. Although the gardeners’ poses, expressions and clothing differ, they are all shown full-length standing in the mid-ground of the scene and looking towards the camera. The selection of forty prints from this series in the Tate collection (Tate T13087–T13126) was made and exhibited in 1979 for Keith Arnatt’s solo exhibition at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. A different selection of prints was exhibited in his 1989 touring solo exhibition Rubbish and Recollections (Cambridge Darkroom; Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Ffotogallery, Cardiff). Arnatt took the photographs that make up this series during 1978 and 1979. To do so, he visited the sitters at their homes, photographing them in their own gardens. The series title, Gardeners, focuses the viewer’s attention on the gardeners rather than the gardens themselves, although the way in which Arnatt presents the individuals surrounded by the grass, foliage and sometimes concrete of their settings, with little else in view, suggests the intimate connection between the gardeners and their land. The repetitive nature of the composition and poses across each of the forty photographs also has the effect of drawing together a diverse group of people who have been photographed as a result of a shared hobby.
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Keith Arnatt, Gardeners 1978–9
Gardeners 1978–9 is a large series of black and white photographs that depicts individuals standing outdoors in the gardens they tend, which vary in character from sprawling fields in the countryside to small urban front gardens. Although the gardeners’ poses, expressions and clothing differ, they are all shown full-length standing in the mid-ground of the scene and looking towards the camera. The selection of forty prints from this series in the Tate collection (Tate T13087–T13126) was made and exhibited in 1979 for Keith Arnatt’s solo exhibition at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. A different selection of prints was exhibited in his 1989 touring solo exhibition Rubbish and Recollections (Cambridge Darkroom; Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Ffotogallery, Cardiff). Arnatt took the photographs that make up this series during 1978 and 1979. To do so, he visited the sitters at their homes, photographing them in their own gardens. The series title, Gardeners, focuses the viewer’s attention on the gardeners rather than the gardens themselves, although the way in which Arnatt presents the individuals surrounded by the grass, foliage and sometimes concrete of their settings, with little else in view, suggests the intimate connection between the gardeners and their land. The repetitive nature of the composition and poses across each of the forty photographs also has the effect of drawing together a diverse group of people who have been photographed as a result of a shared hobby.
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Keith Arnatt, Gardeners 1978–9
Gardeners 1978–9 is a large series of black and white photographs that depicts individuals standing outdoors in the gardens they tend, which vary in character from sprawling fields in the countryside to small urban front gardens. Although the gardeners’ poses, expressions and clothing differ, they are all shown full-length standing in the mid-ground of the scene and looking towards the camera. The selection of forty prints from this series in the Tate collection (Tate T13087–T13126) was made and exhibited in 1979 for Keith Arnatt’s solo exhibition at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. A different selection of prints was exhibited in his 1989 touring solo exhibition Rubbish and Recollections (Cambridge Darkroom; Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Ffotogallery, Cardiff). Arnatt took the photographs that make up this series during 1978 and 1979. To do so, he visited the sitters at their homes, photographing them in their own gardens. The series title, Gardeners, focuses the viewer’s attention on the gardeners rather than the gardens themselves, although the way in which Arnatt presents the individuals surrounded by the grass, foliage and sometimes concrete of their settings, with little else in view, suggests the intimate connection between the gardeners and their land. The repetitive nature of the composition and poses across each of the forty photographs also has the effect of drawing together a diverse group of people who have been photographed as a result of a shared hobby.
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Mona Hatoum, Performance Still 1985, 1995
Mona Hatoum first became known in the early 1980s for a series of performance and video pieces which used her own body as a site for exploring the fragility and strength of the human condition under duress. Performance Still 1985 records one of three street performances which Hatoum carried out in Brixton for the Roadworks exhibition organised in 1985 by the Brixton Artists Collective. The performance consisted of the artist walking barefoot through the streets of Brixton for nearly an hour, with Doc Marten boots, usually worn by both police and skinheads, attached to her ankles by their laces. Performance Still, printed and published ten years later turns the original documentary photograph of the performance into a work in its own right, and has therefore come to identify this aspect of Hatoum’s practice.
Gallery label, October 2013
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Sir Antony Gormley OBE RA, Three Ways: Mould Hole and Passage 1981–2
'You are aware that there is a transition, that something that is happening within you is gradually registering externally.' This is how Antony Gormley described his experience of making plaster casts of his own body. For Three Ways he used such casts to make lead figures in three simple poses: curled into a ball, bending over and lying down.
The sculptures have holes at the mouth, anus and penis respectively. These break the seemingly impenetrable surface of the lead body cases, suggesting an interaction between the outside world and the hollow space enclosed within.
Gallery label, August 2004
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Lost Bike 2019, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Jenny and Zac Holding Hands 2019, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Rene in Sheringham 2019, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Rene and Dad I 2019, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, VE Day, Skegness III 2020, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Rene at New Wave Tattoo 2020, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Mia and Cait Snogging I 2020, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Ingrid Pollard MBE, The Cost of the English Landscape 1989
The Cost of the English Landscape 1989 is a unique multipart work comprising a number of framed photographs and collaged elements. A central section consists of four frames, two of which are divided into three sections, with the other two divided into twelve. They contain photographs, in both black and white and colour, and a range of collaged elements including maps, postcards and printed text. Six further framed photographs, three on each side, flanking the central section, depict the artist climbing over a stile. Signs reading ‘keep out’, ‘private property’ and ‘no trespass’ are placed between them.
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Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Sonponnoi 1987, printed c.1987–8
Fani-Kayode deliberately reveals a partial view in this work, denying the viewer knowledge of the subject or identification of the sitter. The title refers to ‘Shopona’, the name of the Yoruba god of the Earth and of diseases. Deeply feared for the ability to spread diseases such as smallpox and AIDS, his name is rarely uttered. However, Shopona is also known to be a healer. These readings relate to the artist’s own life. Fani-Kayode died of an AIDS-related illness in London in 1989. The coloured dots on the skin have a dual role. They refer to the traditional sculptural representations of Shopona, which are decorated with numerous coloured spots. They also evoke the metropolitan gay scenes of Washington DC and London in the 1980s.
Gallery label, October 2022
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Ione’s Shoes 2019, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Rudi at Christmas 2019, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Maggie in Morley’s 2020, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Chiddy Doing Rene’s Hair 2019, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Mia and Faith at BBQ 2019, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Clap for Carers 2020, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Rene Matić, Skegness 2020, printed 2021
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Paul Maheke, Mutual Survival, Lorde’s Manifesto 2015
Mutual Survival, Lorde’s Manifesto 2015 is a two-channel colour video installation presented on two floor-based forty-two-inch LED smart screens displayed leaning against a wall. The work’s title references the American Black feminist writer and activist Audre Lorde (1934–1992) whose words, borrowed and edited together from her essay ‘I am Your Sister’ published in 1985, caption the video intermittently. ‘As a people, we should most certainly work together to end our common oppression,’ the video subtitle begins. ‘We need to join our differences and articulate our particular strengths in the service of our mutual survivals.’ The work lasts seventeen minutes and fifteen seconds and exists in an edition of five. Tate’s copy is number one in the edition.
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Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Bronze Head 1987, printed c.1987–8
Nigerian-born Fani-Kayode moved to Brighton at the age of 12 to escape civil war. His photographs explore issues of racial, sexual and cultural identity – Bronze Head shows a man’s buttocks and legs above the head of a Yoruba god. Fani-Kayode said his identity came from his own sense of otherness: ‘It is photography therefore – Black, African, homosexual photography – which I must use not just as an instrument, but as a weapon if I am to resist attacks on my integrity and, indeed, my existence on my own terms.’ In 1987 he co-founded Autograph ABP (Association of Black Photographers).
Gallery label, September 2018
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Keith Arnatt, Gardeners 1978–9
Gardeners 1978–9 is a large series of black and white photographs that depicts individuals standing outdoors in the gardens they tend, which vary in character from sprawling fields in the countryside to small urban front gardens. Although the gardeners’ poses, expressions and clothing differ, they are all shown full-length standing in the mid-ground of the scene and looking towards the camera. The selection of forty prints from this series in the Tate collection (Tate T13087–T13126) was made and exhibited in 1979 for Keith Arnatt’s solo exhibition at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. A different selection of prints was exhibited in his 1989 touring solo exhibition Rubbish and Recollections (Cambridge Darkroom; Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Ffotogallery, Cardiff). Arnatt took the photographs that make up this series during 1978 and 1979. To do so, he visited the sitters at their homes, photographing them in their own gardens. The series title, Gardeners, focuses the viewer’s attention on the gardeners rather than the gardens themselves, although the way in which Arnatt presents the individuals surrounded by the grass, foliage and sometimes concrete of their settings, with little else in view, suggests the intimate connection between the gardeners and their land. The repetitive nature of the composition and poses across each of the forty photographs also has the effect of drawing together a diverse group of people who have been photographed as a result of a shared hobby.
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artworks in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation
Keith Arnatt, Gardeners 1978–9
Gardeners 1978–9 is a large series of black and white photographs that depicts individuals standing outdoors in the gardens they tend, which vary in character from sprawling fields in the countryside to small urban front gardens. Although the gardeners’ poses, expressions and clothing differ, they are all shown full-length standing in the mid-ground of the scene and looking towards the camera. The selection of forty prints from this series in the Tate collection (Tate T13087–T13126) was made and exhibited in 1979 for Keith Arnatt’s solo exhibition at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. A different selection of prints was exhibited in his 1989 touring solo exhibition Rubbish and Recollections (Cambridge Darkroom; Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Ffotogallery, Cardiff). Arnatt took the photographs that make up this series during 1978 and 1979. To do so, he visited the sitters at their homes, photographing them in their own gardens. The series title, Gardeners, focuses the viewer’s attention on the gardeners rather than the gardens themselves, although the way in which Arnatt presents the individuals surrounded by the grass, foliage and sometimes concrete of their settings, with little else in view, suggests the intimate connection between the gardeners and their land. The repetitive nature of the composition and poses across each of the forty photographs also has the effect of drawing together a diverse group of people who have been photographed as a result of a shared hobby.
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