Activity Pack: Ages 14 to 16 Years 10 and 11, Key Stage 4 by Meera Shakti Osborne

Activity Pack: Ages 14 to 16 Years 10 and 11, Key Stage 4 By Meera Shakti Osborne

Let’s go, Honey By Rosa-Johan Uddoh Welcome to your activity pack.

Focal Point gallery activity packs are a resource to explore themes in our exhibition programme and ways of engaging with current debates around contemporary art, and look to extend and develop new audiences. We consider the philosophies and working methods of the artists in our exhibitions programme as the starting point for inspiration, aspiration, and discussion in the community. Our packs, designed by practicing contemporary artists are divided into different stages of guided learning. They cover a variety of activities that can creatively engage with wider subjects and school topics, and can be selected appropriate to age groups and levels of understanding.

This pack has been created by Meera Shakti Osborne for children, young people, and their learning leaders in response to the lack of black British history in the current UK curriculum. The packs are divided into age-appropriate learning activities suitable for both educational institutions and anyone interested in extending their understanding of history through contemporary art. Activity pack made by Meera Shakti Osborne in response to Rosa- Johan Uddoh’s ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ exhibtion at Focal Point Gallery. www.meerashakti.com www.rosajohanuddoh.com www.fpg.org.uk Rosa-Johan Uddoh Meera Shakti Osborne

INTERVIEW

MSO: What is the Practice Makes Perfect exhibition about?

RJU: 'Practice Makes Perfect' is an exhibition that explores how we get particular ideas about what it means to be British through the British school system. I am interested in how we are taught British history in school, and how often, Black British history is still left off the curriculum.

MSO: Was there anything specific that inspired this work?

RJU: I was inspired by the Black Lives Matters protests last summer, after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police. While this tragic event happened in the USA, in the UK many people were also outraged and highlighted the ways in which racism is a problem in this country too: in the criminal justice system, but also in schools, universities and healthcare.

Many activists pointed out that Black British people, and Black British civil rights movements are often left off our school curriculums - this along with racism experienced at school can leave black and brown young people growing up in this country feeling like they don't belong. This is not true - black and brown people with parents from countries such as Nigeria, Jamaica and India are just as important part of this country and have been for hundreds of years. I'm a Black British artist, now in my late twenties, so this discussion was very close to my heart. When making the artwork I asked myself, 'how has my experience at school affected my identity?', 'how has it affected my sense of belonging in the country I was born?' MSO: Why have you chosen to highlight Balthazar?

RJU: When I was a child, I went to catholic primary school and secondary schools in Croydon, South London. When I cast my mind back, Balthazar was one of the only black characters that we learnt about at school. Specifically, we learned about him when performing The Nativity play each year. In the bible, Balthazar is one of the three Kings said to have followed a star to visit Jesus when he was born. According to Christian tradition, he comes from Africa, though where exactly in Africa is left vague. I was interested in Balthazar as a rare example of an African immigrant given in school, and a role that black or brown children in the class are often cast in.

MSO: What inspired your WINDRUSH: A TONGUE TWISTER?

RJU: When I did learn about Black History at school, it was always very recent history, which when I was a child, made me think that black people hadn't been in Britain that long. Often, even in TV programmes today, Black characters are only included in shows set after 1948, which is when many Black people from the Carribbean came over on the boat 'The Empire Windrush', which docked that year in Tilbury, in Essex. You don't see black people in older 'period dramas', like Downton Abbey. But actually, Black and brown people have been in this country for hundreds of years. Historians like David Olusoga have pointed out there were even Black Roman soldiers stationed all over England. With 'Windrush: A Tongue Twister' I wanted to make a work that was memorable and fun to learn which spoke about how Black people have been in Britain for a long time.

MSO: Do you think art has a responsibility to be educational?

RJU: Yes! I think we can learn so much through art as it teaches us to look at the world in a different way to what we are used to. I also think you can learn so much through making that you wouldn't be able to through only thinking and listening. Even if you don't understand what an artwork is saying that's ok - I think the most important thing for art is to start a conversation and I think this is something a lot of art does really well.

MSO: What made you want to be an artist?

RJU: I wanted to be an artist as I love making things, getting messy and coming up with new ideas. But the best part of being an artist for me has been being able to spend time learning to express myself, my ideas and my opinions on issues that are very important to me. Everyone has a story to tell. I feel very lucky to be able to share mine through art, and hope to be able to do this for the rest of my life!

Hands to Face, palming exercise.

This is a useful activity to help you feel relaxed.

If you have glasses please remove them for the exercise.

Rub your hands together until both hands are hot. Now gently place your hands over your face. Feel your breath on your warm hands. Relax your face.

Imagine the space between your hands and face is a private and safe place where you are allowed to be yourself, it is a space of no judgement. ‘The East Offering its Riches to Britannia’ Spiridione Roma (1737–1781) (1)

This painting now hangs in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ni London and there is a reproduction held at the British Library in London.

‘Originally commissioned by the East India Company [...] depicting a dark- skinned character representing India willingly offering a pale Britannia all her jewellery and treasures, turning violent looting into an act of peaceful benevolence’ Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera

What do you learn from looking at this painting? What are the different characters doing? Do paintings like this tell a useful history of Britian’s colonial* history? *Colonisation is the process of establishing control over another country. Colonialism happens when a country or a nation takes control of other lands, regions, or territories outside of its own borders (boundaries of the country). These areas are called colonies. At the height of its empire in 1922, Britain had colonised around a quarter of the world and was ruling over 458 million people. Britain has a multicultural history and the very idea of Britishness can and should be questioned. ‘Pastoral Interlude, 1988’ By Ingrid Pollard (2) Included in ‘The Place Is Here Exhibition’, Nottingham Contemporary Feb 2017 – May 2017

‘...A visit to the countryside is always accompanied by a feeling of unease; dread…’ - Pollard

Can you remember a time you did not feel welcome somewhere?

The next page is a space for you to draw yourself in that place. If writing is easier to explain your experience, please feel free to express yourself in what ever way you want to. Where are you? How do you feel? ‘What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us, 1999’ By Benjamin Zephaniah (3)

We know who the killers are, Why is it so official We have watched them strut before us That black people are so often killed As proud as sick Mussolinis', Without killers? We have watched them strut before us We are not talking about war or revenge Compassionless and arrogant, We are not talking about hypothetics or They paraded before us, possibilities, Like angels of death We are talking about where we are now Protected by the law. We are talking about how we live now In dis state It is now an open secret Under dis flag, (God Save the Queen), Black people do not have And God save all those black children who Chips on their shoulders, want to grow up They just have injustice on their backs And God save all the brothers and sisters And justice on their minds, Who like raving, And now we know that the road to liberty Because the death of Stephen Lawrence Is as long as the road from slavery. Has taught us that racism is easy when You have friends in high places. And friends in high places The death of Stephen Lawrence Have no use whatsoever Has taught us to love each other When they are not your friends. And never to take the tedious task Of waiting for a bus for granted. Watching his parents watching the cover-up Dear Mr Condon, Begs the question Pop out of Teletubby land, And visit reality, What are the trading standards here? Come to an honest place Why are we paying for a police force And get some advice from your That will not work for us? neighbours, Be enlightened by our community, Neglect your well-paid ignorance The death of Stephen Lawrence Because Has taught us We know who the killers are. That we cannot let the illusion of freedom Endow us with a false sense of security as we walk the streets, The whole world can now watch The academics and the super cops Struggling to define institutionalised racism As we continue to die in custody As we continue emptying our pockets on the pavements, And we continue to ask ourselves ‘No Women, No Cry, 1998’ By Chris Ofili (4) Victoria Miro, London

Each tear on Ofili’s painting includes an image of Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in 1993 in South East London. Lawrence’s family campaigned for 6 years, because they believed that the murder investigation was unsuccessful due to racism in the Metropolitan police department. They won their case in a historic final report declaring in 1999 that the police department conducting the investigation was institutionally racist*.

*Institutional racism, which is also called systemic racism, is a form of racism that is part of normal practice within society or an organisation. ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ (detail) (centre panel) By Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516, Renaissance painter) (5) This painting hangs in Museo del Prad of Madrid, Spain.

Who is the most important person in this painting? Who would you like to be in this painting and why? NATIVITY 1

By Rosa-Johan Uddoh

In the beginning, they did the Nativity. Everyone in it was pink, well, the main characters anyway: Mary, Joseph, a whole chorus of angels and a baby. The baby, they said, was the son of God, or as they call him at Church, ‘The King of Kings’. To prove it, three rich, glamorous and earthly kings came all the way from ‘The East’ to see the baby when it was born. These kings worshipped the baby and gave him really expensive gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. The thinking was that if even these rich, powerful grown men worshipped the baby, then we should too.

Over a few hundred years, after yearly re-enactments of the story, most Christians would agree that the first king to visit the baby came from Europe. The second came from ‘Somewhere In Asia’. No kings came from the Americas or Australasia as (luckily), the Christians hadn’t found out about them yet. Despite his lacking in pigment or, more likely, because of it, the third king to visit the baby was assigned by the Christians as ‘Ruler of Africa’: Balthazar. And so, the story went for a thousand years: Three White Men.

Yet, as white Balthazar knelt, inappropriately turbaned, behind his two colleagues, another figure arrived into being. Creeping onto the canvas on camelback came Balthazar’s servant, a black man. For years he knelt in service to a representational problem – as a token dark-skinned associate to prove white Balthazar’s African-ness. Balthazar’s servant peeps over shoulders, waiting for the Renaissance, and then, suddenly, in the 15 th Century he strikes: ‘For blackness as a sign is never enough!’ Balthazar’s servant snatches the gift of myrrh from the hands of his white master, and assumes his name and position too. Balthazar becomes a black man. Scripture says he prophesises death. ‘At the moment history is taught to make one group of people feel inferior and another group of people feel superior, and this has to stop.

History needs to be decolonised*. You can go through [the] whole of the GCSE and not have reference to any black authors at all. You could go through history and not understand the richness of Africa and the Caribbean, you can go through history and not understand all the leaders in the black community.’

Labour MP Dawn Butler (6) * Decolonisation, is the process when countries get independence from a colonising country. After countries get political independence the process of decolonisation cannot stop - there are hidden colonial powers in institutions, laws and ways of thinking. These powers maintain the colonialists outlook and remain intact even after political independence is achieved. Butler is talking specifically about the colonialist approach to the UK curriculum that still exists today. Can you remember a time you were silenced in class? What was it you wanted to say? How long did the silencing last? What do you want to say right now if you could speak and not be censored...?

‘I first came here to Hadrian’s Wall on a school trip when I was a boy. Back then pretty much everything I knew about Roman Britain came from from Ladybird books.’

‘Now, I knew that Rome was in Italy, so I think I must have presumed that the Romans were Italians. What books like this seemed to make clear was that there can’t have been anybody in Roman Britain who looked like me or my family.’ ‘We’re now learning that this is far from the truth. Hadrian’s Wall was the northern limit of a multiracial empire that stretched as far as North Africa.’

Screenshots and text from ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History, 2016’ By David Olusoga (8) Series available on BBC Iplayer (see link on final page)

What do you know about Roman history?

Do you think there were any black Romans?

Do you have a similar experience to David’s of how he learnt about Roman history and what he thought Romans looked like?” ‘Syrcas, 1993’ (9) By Maud Sulter Autograph Gallery

In this series Sulter explores black/African erasure (hiding and denying on purpose) in German history. In the exhibition of ‘Syrcas’ at Autograph Gallery a poem by Sulter titled ‘Blood Money Remix’ played aloud.

‘For the child of the circus there would be no reparation for a sterilised womb, family torn apart. Incarcerated. Enforced labour. Concentration camp internment leading for Kwesi to death with the gypsies and jews and gays and others. Close your eyes and imagine a German.’

- Excerpt from ‘Blood Money Remix’ by Sulter Do you see people who look like you in history books? Are black people and people of colour included enough in history lessons? Do you believe the history you are taught? COLOUR IN BALTHAZAR! ‘The Horniman Museum and Gardens is located in Forest Hill, South East London.

The Horniman is named after Frederick Horniman, who inherited and ran his father’s business, Horniman’s Tea, and was elected as an MP for the Liberal Party in 1895.

Frederick Horniman has historically been remembered through his museum as a social reformer who campaigned for the creation of the British Welfare State, and was committed to raising standards of living in Britain across all sectors of society.

It is however also important to remember that the wealth that enabled him to make his collection, build his museum, and campaign as a social reformer in Britain, was reliant on the exploitation of people living in the British Empire.

The tea trade is widely known to have relied on the repurposing of land to build tea plantations, often involving the forced relocation of people already living on and using that land. This had long term economic and social impacts that continue to affect people’s lives today.’

- excerpt taken from Horniman’s Website

Photograph by Andrew Lee, courtesy of Horniman Museum and Gardens (10) The following items are both from The Horniman Museum’s Anthropology Collection. Each includes the museum’s own item description. How the items became part of the collection is not part of the narrative the museum is telling us. Why does The Horniman Museum hold so many items from India and the Caribbean? How did Frederick Horniman get to own so many items?

Did did he buy them, was he given them, or did he steal the items?

Model altar vessel. Oil lamp for one wick. No lid. No Date. (11)

How did this item end up in the UK? This vital information seems to be missing. Please use the space below to complete the item description. ‘Frederick Horniman gave his Museum, Gardens and collections to ‘the people in perpetuity’ in 1901 to help them discover the world – a legacy that lives on in Horniman today.’ - Horniman Museum Website

There exists a space between the collection and the ethnographic field (where the items have been collected from). How was this collection established – and at what cost – is not usually part of the narrative. As viewers, we are not generally asked to critically consider how a collection has come to exist. In museums in the UK we are invited to see the objects in front of us, without a sufficient context of their origin stories, their meaning and status outside of Western classification, nor the histories of their acquisition.

Painted clay double figure of Narayan/Narayani (Vishnu), from eastern India. No Date. (12)

What else do you think should be included in this description of this item... WINDRUSH: A TONGUE TWISTER By Rosa-Johan Uddoh

Black Britain began before that bloody big boat. Before that big bloody boat, black Britain, beforehand, began. And if black Britain began before that bloody big boat Why won’t sir say so?

Black Britain became big 1500 years before Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper from the Seychelles. Before Peter Piper, the colonialist, 2 picked a peck of pickled pepper from the seashores of the Seychelles, black Britain, 1500 years before, became big.

But if black Britain became big 1500 years before the peck of pickled peppers were picked by the colonialist, Peter Piper, by the seashells on the seashores of the Seychelles. Where’s our bloody statue?

Black Britain began before that bloody big boat. Before that big bloody boat, black Britain had, beforehand, begun. But if black Britain began before that bloody big boat Why won’t sir say so?

There was a black man from Carlisle 3 Famed satirist with a wry smile 3 rd Century this was You won’t hear it because The government ‘misplaced’ his file.

Black Britain began before that bloody big boat. Before that big bloody boat, black Britain had, beforehand, begun. And if black Britain began before that bloody big boat Why won’t sir say so?

Black Britain began before Boris begot babies. Before Bolanle said Black Blossoms, before Brathwaite was a bard, before Blanke blew his blowhorn, before brave ‘blackamoore’ Binne, before the Bight of Benin, before the Bristol Bus Boycott, before that bloody big boat, black Britain had, beforehand, begun. And because black Britain began before that bloody big boat. We should simply say so.

It’s easy. Please make a recording, reading WINDRUSH: A TONGUE TWISTER and upload to tiktok including #blackbritainbegan so Rosa can see your videos.

It’s easy!

Alternate nostril breathing exercise.

This exercise will relax your body and help with focus and energy

Sit comfortably with a straight back

Relax your left palm into your lap and bring your right hand just in front of your face. With your right hand, bring your pointer finger and middle finger to rest between your eyebrows.

Close your eyes and take a deep breath in and out through your nose. Close your right nostril with your right thumb. Inhale through the left nostril slowly. Close the left nostril with your ring finger so both nostrils are held closed; retain your breath….

Open your right nostril and release the breath slowly through the right side Inhale through the right side slowly.

Hold both nostrils closed (with ring finger and thumb).

Open your left nostril and release breath slowly through the left side.

Repeat this a 5 times Screenshots from ‘It Ain’t Half Racist, Mum’ 1979 (13) By Stuart Hall Available on Vimeo (see link on final page) Stuart Hall was a Jamaican-born British sociologist, cultural theorist and political activist. His contribution to the understanding of culture, politics, and race have been very important for a huge number of people across the world. Hall was responsible for the first ever Cultural Studies course in the UK.

Until the 1980s, it was very normal for UK sitcoms to have a lot of blatant racist content, it was an important moment when Stuart Hall spoke up about this. The title of his BBC show ‘It Ain’t Half Racist, Mum’ is a play on the BBC sitcom ‘It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum’, which had eight series between 1974 and 1981. ‘It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum’ is now recognised as both racist and homophobic. COLOUR IN!

‘Whites Only from A South African Colouring Book. 1974’ (14) By Gavin Jantjes

Included in ‘The Place Is Here Exhibition’, Nottingham Contemporary Feb 2017 – May 2017 ‘Whites Only’ is based on a public sign that was very common in apartheid South Africa. The sign was to inform non-white people that they were not allowed to enter that public space.

Apartheid means ‘apartness’ in Afrikaans. Apartheid was a racist system written into law that enforced separation and isolation based on race against non-white citizens of South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 until the 1990s.

An apartheid notice on a beach near Cape Town, South Africa, pictured on July 22, 1976. KEYSTONE/GETTY

Deep breathing and being kind to yourself.

This will help you to feel calm and self-assured.

Breathe in and fill your belly with air, as you breathe out recite a mantra that makes you feel good - it can be a compliment to yourself, a soothing word, prayer or whatever you feel.

Repeat at least 8 times ‘Year 3, 2019’ (15) By Steve McQueen Tate Britain Nov 2019 – Jan 2021

In this project McQueen took photos of 76 thousand Year 3 Primary school children. On the next page is a link to a short video exploring the artist’s process and his reasons for making the artwork. Links to work in Activity pack

1. The East Offering its Riches to Britannia www.opendemocracy.net/en/916/

2. Pastoral Interlude www.ingridpollard.com/pastoral-interlude.html

3. What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awns1EIUweA&ab_channel=AKLconcepts

4. No Women, No Cry www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ofili-no-woman-no-cry-t07502

5. The Adoration of the Magi www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/446744#

6. Labour MP Dawn Butler www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/20/teaching-white-privilege-is-a-fact-breaks-the- law-minister-says

7. Where’s Balthazar - A special thank you to Where’s Wally!

8. Black and British: A Forgotten History www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b082x0h6/black-and-british-a-forgotten-history

9. Syrcas autograph.org.uk/exhibitions/syrcas

10. Horniman website www.horniman.ac.uk

11.Altar Vessell www.horniman.ac.uk/object/1990.207vii/

12. Narayan/Narayani www.horniman.ac.uk/object/1982.458/

13. It Ain’t Half Racist Mum 1979 vimeo.com/203825966

14. Whites Only from A South African Colouring Book www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/jantjes-whites-only-p78646

15. Year 3 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed83a1zXfHE&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=Tate