The Wimbledon exhibition and events series ran throughout November 2018.
Pamela Jikiemi speaking at the 8 November launch Pamela Jikiemi curated display
The Decolonising the Arts Curriculum Zine was exhibited in the main reception, and Pamela Jikiemi guest curated a display in the library. Her curatorial statement can be downloaded here.
For the exhibition the Wimbledon librarians worked with Rahul Patel to compile Special Playlists on Box of Broadcasts (BoB). Students and staff can login with their UAL credentials and get free access to a range of video and audio media compiled under the public playlist title: WCA Decolonising the Arts Curriculum.
Rahul Patel speaking at the launch event Film voting poll in the library Richenda Gwilt
Events
The exhibition was launched on 8 November with lunchtime talks by Lucy Panesar, Annie-Marie Akussah, Jayne Knowles, Rahul Patel, Richenda Gwilt and Pamela Jikiemi. Speakers helped to put the Zine and some of its content into context, and highlighted the importance of Decolonising the Arts Curriculum at Wimbledon.
On 27 November there was a screening of the BBC4 Documentary ‘Whoever heard of a black artist?‘ , and on 28 November screenings of ‘Ten Best Voted‘ compilation by the Wimbledon librarians.
At Wimbledon there is also a great deal of existing and new in-curricula decolonising activity. In addition to the ‘Perspectives’ lecture series, the BA Fine Art Painting students had a special forum with Tom Cardwell called Museum Remix, in which they discussed Kerry James Marshall’s current exhibition and the Carters’ ‘Apesh*t’ video. Painting and Theatre Design students have had a workshop with Rahul Patel and Lucy Panesar on Decolonising the Disciplines, looking at the following quote from Rasheed Araeen, included on page 26 of the Zine:
‘One shouldn’t perhaps look at the art education institutions alone for the answers, as they are only parts of the art establishment at large. The knowledge which is passed on to art students is actually the knowledge received from the art establishment (i.e., art galleries, museums, art publications, etc.) generated by its recognition and signification of art activity. And since this recognition has not been given to black artists, even when some of them have been on the forefront of new developments in contemporary visual arts, they have remained, along with their contributions, invisible’ (National Conference On Art and Design through Education, 1981).
Wimbledon staff participated in a workshop at the CCW Staff Conference on Decolonising Spaces and Places of Learning with Lucy Panesar, in which they unpacked the following quote by Gurnam Singh, from page 1 of the Zine:
‘…perhaps the project of decolonisation is less about seeking out authentic culture as such but more about the opening up of creative spaces to facilitate the production of culture informed by indigenous thinking and doing. As George Sefa Dei* notes, the recognition of indigenous knowledge as legitimate in its own right requires that we rethink institutional spaces in which philosophy is done and envisage new ‘non-hierarchical’ spaces of knowing.’