A NE CES SARY FIC TION

Basil Olton . Image courtesy Chris Braithwaite, of Dorothy Rose du Boulay. aka Jones: an introduction Dorothy Rose du Boulay

It was during my first foray into further - from Kwame Nkrumah to Paul Robeson – his family and position at the docks. She education, in a rather dusty copy of Edward but with enough heart to cook fish and rice had visited ’s residence in Scobie’s Black Britannia, that I first discovered for his neighbours in Turners Road, Stepney; Camden on many occasions and, in addition my maternal grandfather, Chris Braithwaite, where, sadly, many were ravaged by hunger. to noting that he had no telephone, stated that in an official context. It was the mid 1980s Even more reverentially, they would mention ‘they never spoke on the phone, because they and, despite the fact that it had first been his very personal involvement in the defence were all being watched by Special Branch’. published in 1972, I had never before heard of the young men collectively known as the mention of this book. It was a chance ‘Scottsboro Boys’. This all seemed rather Could it be that the ideas and actions of discovery, selected solely because of its title; fantastical to me, for, somewhat naively, my grandfather and his comrades managed which was in many ways contemporaneous I assumed that black people in Britain lacked to be at once noble and seditious? When I with the temperature of the era. For it had the agency to organise and protest, at least consider occurrences such as the resignation suddenly become acceptable, fashionable beyond rioting or carnival. en masse from the Communist Party of Great even, to be both black and British. Britain, to form the unapologetically black It was much later, in my postgraduate years IASB, or an article written by my grandfather Within its pages, my grandfather is referred to that I resumed my attempt to combine the entitled ‘Why the Colonial Workers oppose as the ‘Secretary’ of the International African personal and political life of Chris Braithwaite. Conscription’, it seems entirely possible. Service Bureau – also something I had never The prompt was a class on female modernist before heard mention of. Scobie’s description writers, which included and They had committed no crime, as such, yet the of the IASB as a forerunner of the Pan African . This led me to Mannin’s available files contain many, many redactions; Federation was therefore enormously helpful Comrade O Comrade (1947), which in parts so much so, that myself, and numerous others in positioning the work of my grandfather and is based upon, and dedicated to, ‘Chris Jones’, besides, have been compelled to reinstate that his esteemed comrades as something that and Cunard’s (1934) Negro anthology. This narrative. The boldly provocative A Necessary was, and still is, relevant. It was both exciting original, rare version contains photographs Fiction presents a reassembling of that hidden and daunting to discover that, together of my grandfather; at a rally in Trafalgar history that takes us far beyond the realms of with his comrades, my grandfather had Square and at a May Day march in Beech archive and academia. As such, Basil Olton campaigned against imperialism in all of its Street, EC1 – images subsequently excluded has perfectly captured both the struggle and unpleasant manifestations; campaigns that from the more widely available, abridged the ideological optimism of Chris Braithwaite; had taken them to the very heart of the British version. It also contains a photograph of Ada Braithwaite’s eldest daughter. This led me to a self-proclaimed ordinary man who achieved establishment. Wright, whom my grandfather had personally probe further, to gather a more detailed oral extraordinary things. escorted to the opening night of a Scottsboro history, for reading about Chris Braithwaite, Scobie’s book functioned as a useful gateway defence fundraising concert. Consequently, who is interchangeably referred to as Chris to further enquiry, for up until this point, my I was able to draw some of the threads Jones, was at times, unsettling. Why was it grandfather had been portrayed by family together as I had first heard mention of Ethel even necessary to hide? And from whom? elders as a sort of minor celebrity. A man Mannin, Nancy Cunard and Ada Wright It was Auntie Pam who confirmed that he acquainted with the famous and connected in conversations with Auntie Pam, Chris sometimes had to use an alias to protect 1. One of the most referenced Anecdotal evidence Reflections on discourses on Stuart Hall’s idea of Mixed media collage new ethnicities is the essay ‘New 2017 ‘A Necessary Ethnicities’, Chapter 21 of ‘ICA Documents 7: Black Film, British Fiction’ Cinema’ edited by Kobena Mercer, Dr C Underhill 1989.

Basil Olton’s cylindrical shapes may be ‘expression’ of the subjugated. He describes initially interpreted as ‘redacted’ black plinths, ‘New Ethnicities’1 that give way to the end or pillars. They can be creatively interpreted of black essentialism and its ’innocence’, as omitted material from, or in defiance of, which reflect the complexities and fluidity the grandiose whitewashed columns of the of contemporary life. But, crucially, this archive library they are situated in. must be without giving way to the desecrating dilution of its cause. These However, another observation reveals them narratives he identifies as reinvigorating to be compellingly intact objects that contrast and speaking afresh the great injustices perilously with the intimidating arc of this the human species has committed against statutory space. Olton’s sculptures are itself. Running with this ideal one might small by the scale of this interior, but have imagine newly forged identities that fill an insistent presence and could act like a out the bodies of old and new archetypes. full stop or mark to emphasise meaning. These are voices that have not lost their connections with stories of the past, they These shapes have a clean line of form are paced with the motions of their legacy. drawn with the elegance of a continuous There is something theatrical and potentially gesture and are visibly handmade, poetic in the rhetoric of this model. incrementally built. In the simplicity of their conception and production, these Olton’s choice of ‘A Necessary Fiction’ forms dramatise the site and its function, for the title of this exhibition suggests yet they also discreetly and patiently such a narrative for a project like this that concentrate thought onto a bigger picture responds to and discreetly interprets the that can say something about the human archived documentation of past and almost condition. You know how the artist used previously forgotten political activism with his hands to create these shapes. You the bureaucratic intricacies of employment know how high or low he had to reach history. More specifically it also suggests that variously filled many transitional Chris Braithwaite’s formative years as a to position them. You can feel the time the narrative of the life and work of Chris and potentially conflicting spaces and sailor were spent on the nation-less and and labour of their production. Braithwaite may offer itself to be read in expectations. Through the filter of Stuart merciless plateau of the sea. He worked this way. Hall’s model we can understand these and lived up close with some of the globe’s Stuart Hall talked of the impossibility of factors to have made up the ‘necessary most singularly punished working class. His ‘speaking’ the trauma of historical events. Braithwaite, played out much of his public fiction’ Braithwaite/Jones had to inhabit in experience of hard labour in claustrophobic His use of the phrase ‘a necessary fiction’ was and extra-professional life under the fictional order to give voice to the struggle against conditions, viscerally intimate with his put to work in thinking about possible revised pseudo-name of Jones. His biography reads racial prejudice and oppression he felt peers, saw a prolonged hardship that would identities, representations of and for the as a complex and mixed shifting of roles compelled to confront. have been made painfully distinct by an 2. Christian Hogsbjerg, Mariner, Double bind What history Renegade and Castaway, Seamen’s Mixed media collage Screen print on organiser, socialist and militant Pan- 2017 paperclay Africanist, Socialist History 2017 Society & Redwoods, 2014.

unrelenting view of the widest of horizons. position within the Shipping Federation and reverberating noise of Braithwaite’s righteous His career thereafter was diverse, nomadic his marriage to a white woman somehow anger at the time and the institutional hush and progressive, spending the latter half gave him a relatively privileged opportunity to of the archive today. working for the Shipping Federation and speak out. This may have some truth in it but as a political campaigner.2 the evidence of Braithwaite’s circumstances Basil Olton’s screen-printed ‘redacted’ speak of a larger perspective. The extraordinary texts illustrated here are fictional. They are In the introduction to Chris Braithwaite’s and epic scope of his life and work experience a reworking of found material guided by a biography available online there is an oblique tell of the forging of a great humanitarian. generalised context of forgotten or omitted suggestion that Braithwaite’s established He was an activist that, though compelled evidence that has the potential to irrevocably change the meaning of a historical narrative. These do not reflect a true representation of the original text. They operate more like the repeated refrains of a eulogy.

This work can read as archived objects. Their forms mimic those of the archive material itself. The transformation Olton’s forms effect upon the found material does something to further historicise this story. Looking at the fragile but resolute clay forms, the narrative of this archived material takes on an elegiac presence.

to assume a new identity to pursue his Olton’s past work has been sculptural in political activity, must have been informed the main, and, more often than not, employs and propelled by his first-hand and prolonged materials, techniques and processes of witnessing of the human stories behind the ceramic practice. Olton’s sculptures are painful tragedies caused by the lacerating conceived of as operating within, and as, economic and power inequalities installation. The haptic gesture is seamlessly of colonialism. integrated into these forms, and is deeply embedded in any train of interpretative Olton’s work delicately alerts us to this thought their appearance might prompt. disingenuous triangulation of inequality, Simply and eloquently Basil Olton’s subjugation and power and the disparity handmade shapes make the personal as between what must have been the political incontrovertible. Basil Olton works primarily with ceramics Tower Hamlets Local History Library and the still image. Perceptions of identity & Archives collects, preserves and celebrates and belonging in a post-colonial world the histories of London’s world-famous East are an underlying theme in his work and End. Our Grade II listed library dates from practice whilst questioning the fragility of 1860 and is located on Bancroft Road, Mile the narrative of dominant power structures End. We hold extensive collections on a vast and the interplay between memory and range of subjects relating to Tower Hamlets desire. He is currently investigating how the and its communities. These include thousands material properties of clay are able to capture of photographs and press cuttings as well a memory or reflection of a space as a site as rare publications. Stored on hundreds of commemoration and how the physical of linear metres of mobile shelving in our patterns of memory are manifest when climate-controlled strong room, the archive projected into the supporting environment. collections range from medieval parchment to digital audio and video. Recently shortlisted for the Camden Arts Centre Ceramics Fellowship, Basil has A variety of exhibitions, talks and film exhibited at Schwartz Gallery, London; screenings, on many different aspects of East Politics of Experience, xxn @ Jonathan End history, are hosted free of charge. We Kemp, http://xxn.org.uk/doku.php, London also offer beposke workshops for schools and and ICFF in New York. community groups in our Education Room. If you’re interested in the history of a street or building, tracing your ancestors who lived in the borough, doing a school or college project or are just feeling nostalgic, we’re here to welcome you.

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