In 2019, I co-curated the first student-led show at the Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins, University of Arts London, together with artist and curator Sara Gulamali.
Through an international open-call, we selected 22 artists’ works to show in this 3-week show, and curated an extensive public programme.
In hindsight, I think the ambition of the show was to assist incredible artists and their tools of creating and reinforcing world(s) where their voices are amplified, heard and revered.
It was important to us to avoid calling this show a person-of-color-show to prevent from being ‘tokenised’. Now that this show is long and gone and this ‘threat’ does not exist anymore, I am really proud to say that this show, featured 14 incredible artist women of colour from a total of 22 artists.
Read more, and see their wonderful works here.
Works in the show
The exhibition featured three gestures of mine:
- a daily flower intervention by invigilators. Flowers were sent to the gallery and wherever possible were ‘installed’ in the nooks and cracks of the gallery space.
- On the private viewing, I performed with my ‘band’ comprising of myself, Richmond Cloverfield, Abbas Zahedi, Jerome., Jannat Hussain, Yemi Olade, Almira Farid and Tagara Mhiza. Thank you to Cường Pham for letting us rehearse in An Viet. We called ourselves “The Babylonians”.
- All public programmes were seated on chears provided by An Viet, a community centre in Hackney that provides services to the Vietnamese community.
Rest in paradise, Richmond
The Babylonians. Photos by Jędrek Filuś
