In part four of our series on the Black Atlantic
we're looking at the afterlifes of slavery and contemporary artistic practice
We're looking at the work of Kara Walker, Alberta Whittle and Hew Locke
Hew Locke's Procession is a panoramic magisterial work we see figures that reference the
legacies of slavery the exploitative practices of sugar plantation systems
we see also evocations of masquerade and mass and Caribbean ceremonies and rituals and celebrations
we also think about the ways that masquerade historically has been a set of ceremonies
where the powerless have been allowed to mock and to pillory the powerful in society
we can also see articulations or countries of spirit figures of animal forms
of mythic creatures of creatures out of fable and folklore half human half animal
somewhere in between states of transformation perhaps deities and spirit
figures and sprites figures that seem to belong to fairy tales and folk tales
procession is about Blackness in its many manifestations brought to life into physical
space and made central to a story central to presence in a space which historically was built
through the profits that were involved in the exploitation of Black people in the first place
raw sugar from Jamaica, Trinidad and other islands of the West Indies
raw sugar from Cuba and Mauritius and some raw beet sugar grown at home by our British farmers
the wealth of Britain as a country is built in part on the wealth that it attained through the
colonial system through slavery Hew Locke wants to remind us that the past remains in the present today
In Alberta Whittle's film You Can Never Touch the Same Water Twice she is positioning
herself on the edge of the sea she identifies herself as an inheritor of a legacy of pain
but also a legacy that entitles her to look to the sea as a place of rebirth and renewal we can
look at Alberta Whittle's presence within the film as an act of mourning devotion celebration
which is to say how do you embrace legacies and histories that are charged and painful
you say that these are not the end of a history
in Black presence in Black personhood is always a possibility for renewal
there's always the possibility for remaking there's always the possibility for a new song
Kara Walker's Fons Americanus is an epic overwhelming absurd frightening sardonic
satirical grave significant important overwhelming piece of art is based on the Victoria Memorial
which stands just outside Buckingham Palace a monument and a celebration of empire
Kara Walker is inviting us to think about the moral implications of slavery
Kara Walker creates a monument to horror to absurdity
to the nightmarishness of the idea of race
the scale is supposed to overwhelm it's supposed to put us in the position of Black people who have
been denied a right to stand at all it's a work therefore of restitution but it was also a work of
irony because there's no comfort that comes necessarily from this reckoning we are left
with this understanding of the injustice of these inequalities of power and status
at the same time it's a work of wonder strange grace of imposing power that's Kara Walker's
strength as an artist to be able to hold these contradictory positions in one it's a work
you want to look up to it's a work you want to bow down to it's a work you want to keep looking at
even as part of you wants to look away from it here's a question what do we see when we see Fons
Americanus and and I suppose by that I don't mean what do we see of the sculpture but what do we see
of ourselves as a work it invites a destabilising of gaze because there's so many inversions
white versus Black land versus water safety versus the swimming of sharks there isn't a
fixed order to power to status to hierarchy to racial relationships it invites us to
think about who are we in relation to these legacies of slavery and of the Black Atlantic
the Black Atlantic is a book that was written in 1993 this is almost 30 years ago but the arguments
and the ideas that Paul Gilroy explored in that book remain powerfully relevant today
I think we can see that in the artworks that we've looked at which remind us of
what's at stake and what can be gained what can be reached towards beauty hope possibility dreaming
all of these things lie at the heart of the proposition of the Black Atlantic history but also
the present tense also the pressures and the possibilities of being alive
the concept of the Black Atlantic is a call out to humanity to say let's
put all of ourselves whether you're Black or whether you're white or any colour any culture
in someone else's position and recognise that we share something on this planet that these
history of slavery aren't just exclusive to Black people these legacies make who we are as a society
the Black Atlantic is a liberation text it's a work that speaks about who we are
and it will continue i think to have resonance and to have relevance