TIES THAT BIND
BLACK CULTURAL ARCHIVES
9 MAY - 9 JUNE 2024
A direct reaction to the Windrush Scandal that began in 2018, Ties That Bind explores Black mental health and the effects of generational trauma due to racism. Displayed at the Black Cultural Archives (BCA), the exhibition is comprised of a plethora of mixed media pieces created in response to various prompts explicating how Black communities address mental health. The BCA serves to commemorate the legacy of Black people and provide a space to preserve African and Caribbean diaspora in the UK. It is fitting for an exhibition about Black mental health to be held at the BCA as in many Black communities’ mental health is a taboo topic, sometimes disregarded as a ‘Western’ concept or misinterpreted as a complication of one’s relationship with religion. This exhibition seeks to address this through collaboration with young artists and members of various Black communities in London whilst providing solace for those affected by the Windrush Scandal. The exhibition is well curated and discusses Blackness in a sensitive manner whilst addressing the difficult topic of institutionalised racism candidly, and openly shows the working methods of the curatorial team.
The exhibition, curated by Dr. Rochelle A. Burgess at the Black Cultural Archives in partnership with WCEN Black Minds Matter, begins with an introduction to the topic of the Windrush Scandal. The Scandal consisted of people of mostly Caribbean descent being wrongly threatened with detainment and deportation due to Prime Minister Theresa May’s immigration policies, with many being forcibly removed from the UK and sent to a country they may have never been to. Those targeted were mostly people from the Windrush Generation that moved to the UK between 1948 and 1970. Many lost their homes, jobs, passports. The governmental response to this was poor, with most people and families not receiving compensation they were promised. The Scandal left many families of Caribbean diaspora extremely anxious they may lose a family member and ruined the lives of many unfortunate older people.
The impact of the Windrush Scandal was palpable and is deemed by many people of colour to be an example of institutional racism at the governmental level. Ties That Bind addressed the effects of this and used it to illustrate how racism affects the Black psyche on an individual to community level. “The exhibition centres around data collected as part of UCL’s Ties that Bind project… including a model of how mental health consequences of the scandal, and priorities for future action to address these needs among survivors and communities”. The exhibit used “photography, poetry, spoken word, and a multi-media collage” in response to several prompts to explain the trauma of the Windrush Scandal and the trauma many Black people in the UK feel due to generations of racial abuse (Black Cultural Archives, 2024).
The exhibition is curated for, by and about Black people with blackness and Black mental health in mind, which would come under the label of inclusive curation according to Villeneuve and Love, as they are “using a diverse team to curate exhibitions relevant to broad audiences” as a means of empowerment for those being discussed and exhibited about (2021: p.137). This shows ethical curatorial practices as the exhibition portrays issues of Black mental health and was made in partnership with WCEN Black minds matter, a youth mental health charity for Black people in Wadsworth, London. The responsibility of the curator is to accurately disseminate information and narratives in an entertaining or enticing way: “as a curator, you are working and you're working on behalf of a body of people, the artist, the audience, and the institution”, so to have a team comprised of Black people in an exhibition about the contemporary Black experience is vital (Carroll, 2024). The collaboration showed the journey through different aspects of Black community and family, considering different practices of Caribbean communities and using these as a motif for creating outputs regarding the effects of the Windrush Scandal on the diaspora’s mental health. Each piece was supplemented with well explicated context, allowing the audience to understand how each theme interacts with notions of mental health within the community. As part of the exhibition the research methodology was displayed to make clear the curatorial process – this is particularly pertinent as often curation is a backroom, closed-door activity and the audience only sees the final output rather than the work done to get there. By making the research methods part of the exhibition itself, the curatorial team justify their decisions and do not gatekeep their process. This allows for higher-level engagement with the ideas of the show and stimulates more conversation around the topic which will in turn create longevity for the project.
The aim of the show was to normalise discussions around Black mental health to create change within the community’s approach to mental health and bring awareness to the topic – by creating a sense of transparency around the research, one can access the topic more. Ties That Bind acknowledged intersectionality as part of their discussions of race, particularly focussing on how men’s mental health holds greater taboo in Windrush communities compared to women’s, and making note of the different forms of racism men and women may receive. This therefore suggests ethical curatorial practices around race and not suggest any form of ‘race-washing’ or exploitation of the audience or participants (which is to be expected from the Black Cultural Archive).
