Exhibition - A Necessary Fiction

With the title of the exhibition taken from Jose Esteban Munoz and Stuart Hall’s idea of using archival material to explore the complexities of ancestral histories, A Necessary Fiction, centers on the Barbadian and Tower Hamlets resident Chris Braithwaite, an overlooked but outstanding figure in the history of militant Pan-Africanism and radical socialism and perhaps one of the leading socialist radicals in 1930s and 1940s Britain.

A first in the history of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archive, this exhibition will use contemporary ceramics and the visual arts to re-interpret the idea of an archive and utilise critical artistic practice to question dominant narratives and make a space for the re-imagining and remembrance of the redacted history of black social radicalism.
Using self-reflection, writing and my visual arts practice this exhibition will explore the notion of the archive as a place that stores memories and organises meaning and the role of exhibitions in the production of social knowledge – the politics of exhibiting.