You will have the chance to consider work in Tate's collection in the thematic territory of the Black Atlantic. It will draw on American artists Kara Walker, Ellen Gallagher, and Fred Wilson amongst a wide range of artists to understand this work in a global context.
Led by course tutor Adjoa Armah online. Each week will include guest speakers including Adiva Lawrence, Dele Adeyemo, Nydia A. Swaby and Rudy Loewe. It will be discursive and provide an accessible and engaging introduction to the Black Atlantic. This will be animated through the accompanying new mini-series presented by writer and curator Ekow Eshun. With the theme of each week matching those explored in the four-part series. The course will make space to further unpack what the Black Atlantic is, the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on the formation of British Identity, Monuments, and hidden histories and how artists in Tate’s collection and beyond are addressing slavery in contemporary practice.
This course is part of the Terra Foundation for American Art Series: New Perspectives and run in partnership with Afterall and the Black Atlantic Museum research project at Central St Martins, University of the Arts London.
Adjoa Armah is an artist, educator, researcher and editor with a background in design and design anthropology. She is Research Fellow at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and Editor at Afterall, where she is responsible for the Afterall ArtSchool platform and the Black Atlantic Museum research project.
Camille Crichlow is a PhD researcher at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation at University College London and Project Coordinator at Afterall Research Centre. Her research interrogates how the historical, aesthetic, and socio-cultural narrative of race manifests in today’s visual surveillance technologies.
Adiva Lawrence is a curator at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. She is currently completing a PhD at the University of Hull looking at the representation of transatlantic slavery in museums and in contemporary art.
Nydia A. Swaby is a black feminist researcher working at the intersection of archives, diaspora studies, and visual autoethnography. She is a Caird Research Fellow at UCL’s Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery and the National Maritime Museum, a Curator at the ICA, and an Editor of Feminist Review.
Rudy Loewe is a visual artist and practice-based PhD candidate at the University of the Arts London. Their doctoral research examines Britain’s role in suppressing Caribbean Black Power movements during the 1960s and 70s.
