DTA LIVE

DTA connect with Patrick Vernon to discuss the 100 Great Black Britons peoject. From abolitionists and Industrial Revolution-era social reformers to pioneers of modern nursing, beloved children's authors and recipients of the Victoria Cross, 100 Great Black Britons celebrates the many ways in which Black Britons have challenged and overcome racial barriers to make notable advances in their fields.

Acclaimed Dance Writer Charmaine Warren talks cultural legacy, dance and how movement translates as an archive for modern healing and learning.

Lead From The Land was a collaborative research project between Zambian artist Banji Chona, currently located in Rome, and Nigerian artist Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu, who lives in Lagos. Their correspondence took the form of a six-week-long residency built on an understanding of food creation and consumption as a ritualistic practice that fosters earthly and ancestral connections. Through their correspondence with each other and curator Beulah Ezeugo, they trace personal acts of resistance to the colonisation of indigenous food practices. This work is grounded in exploring the archival nature of the seed, the crop, and the recipe; the cross-generational transmissions that occur when we cook; and their capacity to transmogrify according to our own understanding of our identities and localities. The resulting archive - composed of audio, video, and text - records the potential for our foodways to become a tool to map an ecosystem, one that symbiotic threads taste to place, ritual to invention, and exploitation to exchange. In this podcast, DTA catch up with Banji, Yadichinma and Beulah to explore the process behind the work.  Bios Yadichinma Ukoha-kalu - Artist Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu is a self-taught multimedia artist based in Lagos. Her practice centers on explorations of line, form and boundary which she expresses through a variety of media including painting, drawing, sculpture and film. Ukoha-Kalu often creates landscapes on paper made with a combination of abstract elements and textures. Her work sometimes exposes the skeletal process of creating, where the audience is invited to witness and explore with her. Banji Chona - Artist Banji Chona is a Zambian artivist and artchivist whose work manifests across the artistic and cultural spectrum. Banji’s work channels the visceral need to bring to life accessible spaces dedicated to fostering nuanced artistic and cultural dialogue. Her mission is the deconstruction and reconstruction of orthodox archetypes and normative ideologies through the use of dynamic multidisciplinary art, which has great potential to shift paradigms and inspire children of the Zambezi to live and express their truths which exist at the intersection of historical and contemporary happenstance. Beulah Ezeugo - Curator Beulah Ezeugo is an Igbo curator and researcher, whose current work investigates the collective memories embedded within internets, bodies, and ecosystems. Her practice is informed by a Social Science background from University College Dublin and an MLitt in Curatorial Practice from Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow. She is interested in using archival interventions to collaboratively map new openings and overtures towards a Black postcolonial future.

Sir Hilary Beckles is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies and chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission. In this episode,  he goes in deep on the role of African women in resistance to enslavement, reparative justice, the post-independence political landscape of former colonies, and how institutions are now reckoning with their ugly pasts.

Connie Bell and world-renowned Maroon expert, Dr. Michael Siva discuss the history of the Jamaican Maroons, exploring how Africans in Jamaica resisted enslavement by the British and Spanish, establishing their own sovereign nation.