What an excellent day I had at Tate's Symposium The Black Subject. I presented an interpretation of the black presence in 1241 Doomsday Abbreviato with great, professional support from the team at Tate Britain. You can see my presentation here – be patient it's 50M but the wait's worth it as the pictures of the illuminated capitals are stunning - and read the basis of my presentation here.
It was a full-on day with much networking , learning new things, making new, meeting old friends and listening to arty talk, all thoroughly enjoyable. I’ll try to sum up it with apologies to James Joyce.
I was in the opening session On Presence and Absence chaired by Prof Sukhdev Sandu who introduced me to two new words to describe my self an Autodidact and a ParaAcademic no less always good to hear S I Martin talk about Blacks in eighteenth century London must go on one of his walks I should have included a piece from the Tate collection a Medieval or Renaissance work with a character dressed in variegated or stripped hose or dress note to self to find those works Kimathi Donkor gave for me one of the two most engaging talks of the day on his Andromeda Africana I was shocked to learn that Andromeda was the daughter of an Ethiopian King not the white Greek Goddess I have been led to believe all these years Prof Bindman reminded me that The Image of the Black In Western Art Project is now complete all 10 volumes so I need to buy the remaining 4 volumes which I do not have great to catch up with and share ideas with Madge Dresser must listen to her on BBC Radio 4's Great Lives talking/debating about Ida B. Wells the African American civil rights and women's rights activist also must contact Maxine had an excellent selection of books of interest to WHBBH audience set out by Tate Library must obtain the list for WHBBH web site Kelly Ann Foster told me about her Blue Badge walk on 12th March at BCA which I must book a really pleasant surprise to meet Julius a fellow ClydeSider from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last summer as I had only just been looking at his picture that day wondering where he was great catching up with David Olusoga finding out what he is working on and discussing common interests brief chat with Mekada and note to catch up after the Symposium to discuss and learn from her experiences of developing black culture capital for my WHBBH activity surprised and saddened to learn that no London Gallery would take Jan Marsh exhibition The Black Victorians will have to find time to do the research in to why the blacks presented by Dr Caroline Bressey seeking work in Victorian newspapers described themselves as coloured loved Dr Gemma Romain idea of book yourself into an archive it is just like visiting an art gallery or museum taking part in US seminars from the UK is easy Dr Michael Fisher did his presentation by Skype and it worked seamlessly he even joined in the panel by video Skype I now know what an Ayah is thanks to Tate Public Wifi and Wikipedia they were much discussed but never explained excellent talk by Prof Partha Mitter aligning Jamani Roy with German Primitvisim although they never met each other they shared a common art form perhaps both critiqued Urban Capitalism but in their own way.
As I said a full-on day, great fun & now the work begins to pick up those networked connections.....
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| Section of Final Panel Session from the Auditorium |
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| Section of Auditorium from the Panel on Stage |
