Conversations about Conversations

In October we held a CPD evening event for teachers and educators which included a panel discussion with some of the artists featured in the exhibition. Here is a transcript from the discussion, which may help you prepare for your visit.

Chair

Ni Maxine

Artists

Ivy Kalungi

Jioni Warner

Elliss Eyo Thompson 

Panel discussion

Imagine you were a child walking into a space like this where you were represented. How would have you responded?

Ivy

My family did not get what I did. I didn't have any background in art at all until I went to Hope University, and I have this thing around finding your tribe, I guess, within any work environment, so I did go to Hope, and I had a really great tutor called Lynn Holland, and she was a great tutor at Hope, but she really, really, really pushed me, championed me, and gave me the confidence that I didn't have, just simply because I didn't see anyone that looked like me within that space, even going into the library and trying to pick up a book, and there was nothing there in terms of the narratives that I was looking at, or the themes. She really kind of pushed that on, so I guess for me, sorry I'm kind of rambling a little bit, I find that whole idea around tribes, so being a part of this exhibition, we've got a massive tribe of people here, but as being a young child, this would have been incredible I think I would have been a lot more confident really early on around what I could do, yeah, just taking on that space, I guess.

Jioni

I was the short, quiet kid in the corner, and art was always my outlet, I was always drawing, even on my mum's walls or on the carpet inside the table. So there would have been way more confidence, and taking up space is not an easy thing to do, so in terms of when I did eventually go into the art world and realised that this is a space for me and that I need to take that space up, I would have stepped into that room and shut everything down instead of having to build that confidence up from scratch and then repeatedly have to build it up when it gets knocked down again.

Elliss

I think for me it would have planted a seed, a seed that would have unravelled and grown as in understanding myself, that I could also express myself in these ways. So I think it would have planted a seed, which would have been major, especially if I was a young person and I was briefed, like okay, you're going into this exhibition, it has 40 black artists, this is the first time it's been done. If I was briefed in that way as a young child and someone of that ethnic group, it would have planted a big seed for me, that would have blossomed later and it all comes back to growing up and thinking you can only be in a single way, you can only express yourself in a single way, you have to be a certain way actually.

There's so many different ways that you can express yourself and so yeah, I feel like it would have planted the seed within me, I say for the fifth time.

What is your advice for any educators in the room in terms of how we can prepare artists who are coming from a global ethnic majority background for this type of exhibition? What would you say needs to happen before those young people come into the space?

Ivy

I guess it's similar to what you said about a briefing prior to coming into a space like this, as well as creating an open and safe space for these students, I guess, and these young people. I think the safe space for me personally, because of my own experience, is the key and opening dialogue where people feel safe to have these conversations without being shut down or yeah, I'm going a little bit blank here, because it's such a massive question, I could go into so many different things, but personally for me, I believe that creating a safe space for these young people is the way to go really surrounding that.

Jioni

I think it's really important to make sure that they feel heard and protected going to spaces, because in any gallery you go to, it's not going to have 45 Black artists exhibiting there, and just making sure that they know that art is also for them, that they have an interest, that art is more than just paintings, there's so many other materials and resources available for them, and if they do have an interest, then nurture that. If they express it through different ways, their expressions also matter too, even if it's in a non-typical way. Often we go to galleries and it's very quiet and you feel like you can't even make a sound, but in this one there's sound, you literally take up that space and it's okay to react in different ways than just gaze longingly at the artwork.

They can dance and that's completely okay for them to do so, and if they are members of that gallery, say that they can't do that, as a teacher you should maybe challenge that behaviour for them, because they're the future.

Essentially galleries are very white, middle upper class, essentially you enter them you don't feel comfortable and you might be watched by people in the visitor assistant team, you might even witness them greeting somebody who's white and it's very very welcome and welcoming in one way, whereas they look at you like they just stood at something in the street, essentially like what are you doing here, what do you belong there, but as a teacher if you see that behaviour, just making sure that you tell that people that they belong in this space too, and if they're reacting different ways to the artworks, essentially yeah we can't misbehave in galleries, it's the same with other museums and the same with working in the classroom, but if they're reacting to artwork in a positive way, maybe they're just excited and they express that through being loud and then somebody else who's looking at the artwork and like essentially what you're doing here and making that noise, they're allowed to do that, art is expressive, it's an expressive form and I think it's such a colonial mindset to look and just think we look at artwork and just not show any emotion etc to it and I think it's time we start dismantling that essentially and realise that it's okay to laugh at artwork, that's an emotional response in a way too, it's maybe a challenge if you could challenge how they're laughing at the work etc but just have that conversation with them, don't instantly shut it down, unpack it with them, they can dance to the artwork, they can do different things like okay and if there are kind of maybe visitor assistance people walking around you kind of questioning why they're doing that, just say is this not a gallery and they've not been looking at artwork that is expressible and you should always challenge this and dismantle things.

Ivy

I think that's what you said is really important but I always question this whole idea around gallery spaces in general, I find it really weird how viewers are always kind of placed within these settings and especially how you shouldn't like you said look at an artwork or experience an artwork, quite like to break the rules in that sense, I feel like that's not the way you should experience it in your own expressive way but in terms of young kids, can you imagine when you were young you had so much imagination, you had so much excitement around things that you found that were interesting to you so I guess like you said, you just have to as the educator or as the person that's within that room even like your invigilators, you should encourage that behaviour really and not suppress that because again it's this whole idea around policing within these spaces I think is wrong but that's my own personal belief within the gallery.

Ni

I mean if I'm able to interject like as a black working class young person growing up I never even I didn't know that galleries existed and then the first time I went to galleries I was like no I'm not supposed to be here and even now I'm like well like this is crazy like we're sitting in a gallery having a conversation there's people listening to us like this is such a strange I don't know if you would agree like and can relate to that experience as a black person but it's so you know it's such an amazing opportunity to really shift the dial for like how students see themselves in an institution that is you know they're very exclusive so just do conversations, it's casual.

Jioni

So my first time visiting an art gallery, I went to these art gallery and it's crazy saying that because my work is also being exhibited in these art galleries as well and my sister took me and we went I looked around and I said I don't like art. Do you see the irony in that now? So it's so important to feel seen and to be able to react to artwork and representation because art is a living thing it still exists because I didn't see myself I thought that this wasn't for me and I didn't have a lot to learn on so if I was a child soon coming to this gallery I would have never had that reaction that art isn't for me because I'm here.

How we can make sure that important conversations around race identity and systemic racism happen in the classroom?

Elliss

Yeah I feel that like well during I feel like observing how the young people what they're drawn to where they're going how they're reacting and just like make a note like you know make a note of it mentally and allow them to have their reactions you know like they have free will their children they're expressive like we just covered and then like afterwards I guess if I was an educator in that sense bringing a group I would be thinking about how can I if if there was a seed planted in one of these young people's heads like how can I nourish that if there can be not you know not not doing it not only having a brief beforehand but can we have like a debriefing activity afterwards you know and have like seeing what artwork they can produce as a result of coming here or like you know if they now pick up a pen you know what comes out of them if they were given like a task about you know conversations and just kind of using it as kind of maybe as a starting point for like some complex conversations that youth have the big job of like breaking down in a way that is like digestible for young people. I like this this is the prompt and then take it out of their mouths and it becomes a work.

Ivy

I guess, depending on the age group, if you took for instance a group of university students to a space like this and having a conversation away from the gallery and after they experienced it could look like maybe doing like an analysis on an artwork that they really felt connected to or a theme and again you know that's really kind of connecting with the work as well as connecting with the likes of what we want to do here today start these conversations and I know within these institutions sometimes there isn't the resources for these students so that's a great way to start that I guess and I start their thinking in that sense. I mean there's great painters out there not a lot of them are white old men you know what I mean and that would start that dialogue that's what I would use and in their way as well express it in their way, in film, so there's reacting and responding off of these artists that they see within the gallery spaces and doing that in the classroom.

Jioni

I think as teachers it's really important for us to and look at our unconscious biases that we might have to then enable to try and create safer spaces and within our classroom to have those conversations about race and identity and it's important to kind of set rules in terms of reactions but get them to understand that so what I do at the International Slavery Museum is before I'll do my tours and my workshops I will get my kids to say that we're going to be behaving in a respectful way and I'll tell them okay so all my younger groups are like saying what does it look like if we're going to behave in a respectful way so that they get that understanding of what it means to be respectful and that way they've also set their own rules and so kind of create that safe environment for everybody to kind of add their own perspectives and things to it.

What does a safe space look like to you? What does it look like, what does it feel like, what does it sound like it's quite it's quite a weird question but I feel like?

Elliss

I feel like it's to me it's about freedom of expression and knowing that you can you can ask a question or you can say something that you know you won't be like penalised for or something you know we don't know everything you know and we all have to ask questions whether sometimes we feel like it's a silly question or you know sometimes it involves our own unconscious bias as well and I think just kind of a safe space to me is that freedom of expression of knowing that I could express myself and ask this question and get an honest like ethical moral answer and you know what maybe the answer looks like comfort you know or affirmation

Jioni

It's quite hard to create safe spaces because institutions are not safe spaces and never have been safe spaces for anybody to be honest and especially not as a Black or brown person. I think the best you can do is to try and create safe little pockets within those. You mentioned like setting rules in terms of how we're all going to behave but maybe doing some kind of activity decompression at the start that kind of sets the tone for everything else but also puts everybody at the same level so like play or do like a very silly activity that way we all feel weird and uncomfortable but we're all doing that together we're all in the same we're all at the same level right now so that kind of builds up a little bit of trust in terms of okay now I feel like I can express or ask those questions that I will get in trouble to ask or like maybe feel like in that sense but it's also a matter of also taking accountability that yes it's a safe space for your question who's that safe space for who's it created for because their voice needs to be centred within that space as well. 

How does your art enable you to express and reclaim your identity?

Elliss

I feel that creativity to me is solely through imagination, right? And so for me, my art, I really like to re-imagine myself, you know, reimagine what life was like for my ancestors, because as someone who has like two African villages, they at some point are, well, not at some point, are very shortly cut off from me, so I don't know what was, you know, before. It's sad to say, my parents, essentially, I didn't know what was before them. For me, my art is about re-imagining what life was like for them and what their experience was like. My work always has like a spiritual connotation for that because I'm meditating on what are they whispering to me, what was life like for them before. And so, yeah, I feel like art allows me to re-imagine my heritage and meditate with that.

Jioni

I think from what Elliss was saying, my art practice is very much talking about my own identity. And I take a deep breath, because the last time I talked about this I completely cried. So essentially, what I do is embody my ancestry and imagine what it is that they faced. So the woman who's in the portrait is actually me. I dressed in 1950s woodrush arrival clothing. And I was very particular when the other items, which I gathered from a collection when I was in my undergraduate at Staffordshire, because they didn't just arrive in any clothing, they arrived in their very best clothing. And Caribbean people love our bright colours too, so I did the brightest and the best clothing as well. And I did my photo shoot in collaboration with my friend who's a photojournalist. And we did that photo shoot, and the things I was picturing in my head were like, how would I have felt coming to this strange city? And knowing that my grandmother had children to look after, back at St. Kitts, was making me feel that for myself, hearing what it means, and what did that feel like arriving in this place? And as I unpack more, it looks at just the smaller objects in my art practice. It's not just me as a person, it's the small aspects works that I have, and will instantly recognize that, oh, we had a clock that looked exactly like this, or we used to use the blue magic hair, we had the hot comb, and so perhaps those stories would embody our identity, and teach a beautiful thing to experience. And like you said, Elliss, it's kind of, well for me, it is a spiritual experience too, because you are paying homage to your ancestors. I wasn’t able to meet my grandmother, she passed away when I was just a baby, so I'm literally living through her stories as well.

Ivy

It's certainly a teaching way, so it's a way for me to express my own identity. Like I said, I was born in Uganda, which is East Africa, and I migrated to Northern Ireland with my mother and my twin sister. I guess growing up in Northern Ireland at the time, it wasn't a safe space, like I said, for us going into, or being brought up even within a Catholic environment, you know, we had things such as stripping our uniforms off so we didn't get recognized when we went to Catholic school and things like that. And dealing with all these different kind of things growing up, I guess, was really difficult for me.

So, through my art, I try to navigate those things. Again, similar to what Jioni said, it's a way for me to kind of pay homage to my grandparents, luckily I still have them, and my ancestors, but particularly this work that I showed here, this gallery is really kind of taxing for me emotionally, as it's paying homage to my aunt who passed away. So she came over to Northern Ireland not long after my family had migrated, it's my mom's sister, but during childbirth she developed post-traumatic depression, and again with that, moving on to developing schizophrenia. And coming from the background that I do, we didn't have much knowledge around that, we weren't educated around mental health as a whole. So for me, that journey, creating that work was really kind of unpicking that, and kind of holding my hand up to say, you know, as a collective, as my own community, my family, we needed to do the work to kind of unpick that, and also holding my hand up to someone who suffers with mental health issues myself, how can I do that in a way that celebrates her, but also kind of plays a part in all these different things in our entire journey.

So those are calling rods, and the reason why they're called calling rods is that I did quite a lot of work spiritually with this whole idea of dowsing, if you've ever heard of it. And so dowsing was a way, years and years ago, for people to kind of find, it could be finding an object, so a metal object, or it could be finding some sort of purpose, and for me that was finding, trying to find my way through that grief. And again, pay homage to my aunt, again, you'll see small details on pottery shelves, it's a way of an exchange within my own culture, it's a currency exchange, but it's a way for me that I hold kind of like a, this object holds a tunnel through to her, and that's why I wanted to kind of place this within this space here, because I think she's an absolutely amazing, was an amazing human being, and she took up quite a lot of space, so this artwork has lived within this space as well, this is part of an important space.

How do you as artists navigate that emotion, like what do you need to deal, ideally, like you might not have it maybe, but like what do you need to be able to actually tackle that emotion, and to deliver something so brilliant? 

Elliss

I honestly don't know what I need, I honestly don't know. But speaking of like stories behind art, there's many stories about this piece, but I, it was made in 2020, and so we had like, went through our first lockdown, was coming out of it, and it was, you know, that time was, you know, I'm sure we was all reimagining who we are, what we are, what to do next, how we express ourselves. What I wanted to say is that when I was filming, when I was, the days I was filming, because there's four different scenes, so on one of the days I was filming, I had just been not far from here, like London road, not far from here, I just went to get some materials, and like some glitter for accessories, and I was coming from Lime Street station, and I was actually racially profiled by the police, and stopped and searched. He was, the officers were being really rude to me, and he, he said to me, oh you're being very blunt, and I said I have anxiety right now, and he said I don't think you've got anxiety, I think you've got drugs on you, and so, where it becomes humorous to me is that when he searched my bag, all that was in there was glitter, so, although that should not have happened, it also fitted, because that evening I was recording the fire element of my film, and I was like you know what, instead of me. I'm not really an angry person, I don't know, I don't really know how to express, express anger, but for me I was like, I will just express all this rage when I'm doing the fire element, and so I just kind of bought into that, and I think it speaks to art being an outlet of like different emotions.

Jioni

I think it's so hard to be honest in this day and age, because there's so many things you have to juggle, a lot of us have full-time jobs, and there's a lot of working and art practice outside of that, and it's very tiring as well, so like creative blocks are not uncommon, that literally just, I'll create a block, I don't know how to say it, because I didn't create anything for a solid couple of years, actually yeah, believe me I'm pretty fit, and it's having the safe space to create, also having people around you who support you as well, and I feel like you get inspired by other artists too, so you have that creative atmosphere as well, it can be really encouraging, and to then go on and inspire you to think, oh I think this artist works amazing, and I think I want to do something inspired of that, but it's also like those times at 3am when you get a sudden idea, like I need to jot this down before I continue thinking about it, and I feel like an artist is one of the most weirdest and beautiful things to be, I think the thought process in our mind just works differently to what other people would consider… I think it’s like allowing myself to be vulnerable.

Elliss

it's actually allowing yourself to feel it, I think that's hard. Yeah, a lot of it is internal, like I need to allow myself this space, but then I also have to feel comfortable in my outer life, external life, to feel that I have this space.

Ivy

I think for me, that's a difficult answer, but at the time when I created this work, like I said this one was really taxing actually, and I know what I didn't need, because I received what I didn't need, but it opened up questions with other artist friends of mine, around this whole idea about artist care, and what that looks like with institutions, and

that's what I'm actually, I'm navigating that question now, because it was only a couple of weeks ago that I got brought up, but it's artist care, so again, if the artist is exhibiting in a space, or they have a residence here, they're connected to the gallery, or the institution somehow, it's how does the institution take care of that artist, so whether it's a catch up a couple of months later, what are you doing, I'd love to come to a studio and look at some of the works you're producing, I guess it's that, because like we all said, some of the topics that we're discussing in our works can be quite heavy, and it can be really emotionally challenging, so having artist care there at the forefront, I think that would be, for myself, that's what I would want, that's why I would love that, that would be artist care.

Ni

I don't want to talk about myself, but it's just, it's funny, because when we remember being in school, and having this amazing art teacher who was like, “I noticed a change in your art, can I have a chat with you?”, and then I was able to, and she basically became my therapist, didn't know I needed one, but she was able to respond to what I'd created, and go okay, I'm just changing, and I think that's such a like, you can do that for a student and completely change their life, so I think it's, that is something, essentially care, creating that space and just having the time to really look after the individual.

Elliss

That even makes me think about the increase in art therapy, I actually spent some years assisting an art therapist, and I assisted an art therapist who did art therapy for cohorts of trans individuals. I sat in their groups assisting on many different cohorts, and the value of what came out of that, and even from that, I was able then, when I had a mental health role, I brought a creative expression group, and these people could be from any age, from any background, and just by setting a theme or a topic, it was phenomenal what comes out of that person. So if you're thinking about how this exhibition can lead on to something further or prompt, something further, it could be the start of all the children's creative expression. How do we contain that? Not holding that in. How do we contain that during art expression?