“Those who do not see themselves reflected in national heritage are excluded from it." Stuart Hall
It has been fantastic to see the eclectic way in which black history has been celebrated throughout the city as part of Bristol Black History Month. This quote from the sociologist Stuart Hall is a reminder of the importance of including everyone’s stories as part of the national historical discourse. BSWN is determined that the Black History celebrations will continue throughout the year. Like Arike Oke, the director of Black Cultural Archives suggested, every month can be black history month, and this is certainly the sentiment here at BSWN.
I joined BSWN in June as part of the NLH funded project focused on Intangible Cultural Heritage from a heritage and education background.
Through the project BSWN intends to push the discussion around decolonisation and inclusion within the heritage sector. Asking questions such as, what is the meaning of decolonisation in the context of heritage today? How do you unpick the colonial narrative from a space like a museum or archive, spaces traditionally set up as show cases for the celebration of colonialism? How does the lack of a BAME workforce impact on collections development and audience in mainstream museums?
Over the last 6 months we have begun the work to highlight and show case the intangible cultural heritage of Black and Asian communities in Bristol, with the view to creating a digital archive. You may wonder, how can a black led organisation like BSWN lead the way in developing a truly decolonised archive? This archive will aim to be community led and community used. To this purpose, we would like your views on the Intangible Cultural Heritage that you would like to see collected, so please take the time to fill in our short survey.
Other key aspects of the project include supporting Black and Asian arts/heritage organisations with in areas of funding, signposting, curation, networks, project planning etc. If you are interested in gaining some support with a creative heritage project, please contact me at Heritage.manager@bswn.org.uk
As part of the Black History Month programme, Jennifer also wrote an article titled ‘In search of my mother’s garden’ which can be found online as part of the brochure on page 34.