A Necessary Fiction

Currently making work for an exhibition at London Borough of Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archive entitled "A Necessary Fiction", planned for April 2017.

With the title of the exhibition taken from Jose Esteban’s and Stuart Hall’s idea of using archive material to explore the complexities of ancestral histories, “A Necessary Fiction” centres on the Barbadian Chris Braithwaite, one of the leading socialist radicals in 1930s and 1940s Britain. An overlooked but outstanding figure in the history of militant Pan-Africanism and radical socialism, he was perhaps the critical lynchpin of a maritime subaltern network in and around the imperial metropolis of inter-war London.

Better known under his pseudonym, Chris Jones, Braithwaite challenged state racism and the exploitative and oppressive experience of colonial seamen, at the hands of ship-owners and the National Union of Seamen. He was fundamental to the launching of the Negro Welfare Association (NWA) and also formed the Colonial Seamen’s Association (CSA).

An important friend and contemporary of intellectuals George Padmore, C.L.R. James, Paul Robeson, Eric Williams, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Ralph Bunche and the Kenyan nationalist and future Kenyan Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta, Braithwaite was crucial to the mobilising of black radicals against the injustices of British colonialist and imperialist rule. Whilst central to the development of the international working class movement and International Socialism, Braithwaite developed close links with Nancy Cunard, Reginald Reynolds and Ethel Mannin to build solidarity with the colonial liberation struggles across the African diaspora.

The relevance and visibility of colonial maritime ethnic labour and its importance to an understanding of history of labour in Britain has been sorely neglected and overlooked. This exhibition is an attempt to situate and position black radical social history and its intrinsic relevance/ importance to trade union activism and current labour law. Particular themes are informed by perspectives on politics, identity and activism, the language of the international and ideas around diaspora. It is an attempt to utilise critical artistic practice to question dominant narratives and challenge the western simplification and belittling of black history.

Using a form of qualitative research, I will use self-reflection, writing and my visual arts practice to explore personal experience and connect an autobiographical story to wider cultural, political social meanings and understandings.