Join our virtual Community Conversation with our trainee Community Archivists centring around Olive Morris. Come and share your stories, and opinions.
FRAMEWORKS is a conference and award ceremony exploring and inspired by the legacy of activist and organiser Olive Morris. DTA is excited to announce that there will be Keynote speakers at the 2nd Annual Black Activists Luncheon and Olive Morris Awards Ceremony. A space to explore and celebrate African heritage women’s organising (and nyam some good food!).
Join us for an event to explore wellbeing trauma-informed approaches to working with archives…
Join us at the Correcting Our Collecting Seminar in the Midlands. A one day seminar on independent Black heritage practice for communities. Get tickets as soon as possible
Read on…
This artist residency scholarship is part of DTA x LOATAD’s Out Of Many, One People 1-year Festival, celebrating transnational Black cultural activism inspired by the life and legacy of Ghanaian playwright and Pan-African cultural activist, Efua Sutherland (1924-1996). The residency is extended to both Ghanaian and international cultural playwrights /artists and activists who wish to use Efua Sutherlands’ method of creating plays for outdoor performance…*read more*
This applied theatre workshop will be led by memory worker Connie Bell as part of the Out Of Many, One People Festival 1-year celebration of transnational Black cultural activism inspired by the life and legacy of Ghanaian playwright and Pan-African cultural activist, Efua Sutherland (1924-1996). The year 2024 marks the centenary of Efua Sutherland’s birth, and Library Of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD) and Decolonising The Archive (DTA) are organising a series of hands-on events to actively commemorate the occasion.
This 2-day workshop will explore storytelling as an intersectional tool to how we foreground invisible stories that have been erased due colonial practices. We will use our radical imagination to collectively play with new ways of culture-making and presenting by decentring dominant modes of curating that situate care and community co-production. This will enact speculative practices of world building and Black futurity to embody liberators care both interpersonally and collectively...*read more*
Finding What Is Ours is a one-day, in-person symposium widening access to ongoing work reclaiming African heritage knowledge systems. This day of interactive workshops, presentations and provocations from leading African heritage thinkers and doers in reparations, ethnopharmacology and (digital) heritage practice in the UK, the US and the Caribbean. They will be sharing their work and their skills and addressing Sloane in the process…*read more*
This is a workshop/focus group for African/African-Caribbean people with an interest in history. No special skills are required.
Participants will be asked to use the beta-version of the ‘Sloane Lab’ digital portal to search for African/African Caribbean histories. This will help the project team understand the kinds of questions we want to ask this digital knowledge base so the platform can be made more accessible to us.
FRAMEWORKS is a conference and award ceremony exploring and inspired by the legacy of activist and organiser Olive Morris. DTA is excited to announce that Carole Boyce Davies and Esther Stanford Xosei will be Keynote speakers at the 1st Annual Black Activists Luncheon and Olive Morris Awards Ceremony. A space to explore and celebrate African heritage women’s organising (and nyam some good food!).
Join us for an evening of film and rich discussion @ the Library of Africa & the African Diaspora, Accra, Ghana.
Dr Walter Rodney was an activist scholar killed in his prime for the work he was doing to bring about a better world.
Directed by father-son team Arlen Harris and Daniyal Harris-Vajda, the film explores the Cold War conspiracies, Black Power activism, and end of Empire politics surrounding Rodney’s life and death and how these connect to modern-day policing, surveillance practices, and social movements.
The film features personal contributions from Professor Patricia Rodney (Walter Rodney Foundation) and prominent historians, activists, and scholars like Angela Davis, Gina Miller, and former President of Guyana, Donald Ramotar, among others.
For this screening, we are honoured to welcome Professor Patricia Rodney and Director Arlen Harris as our special guests for the post-film Q&A
ADDITIONALLY, FOR OUR PALM WINE GROUNDINGS AND REASONING WE ARE HONOURED TO WELCOME:
Anakwa Dwamena - a freelance journalist, researcher, and editor focusing on the African diaspora. Inspired by African traditional religion, his work centers on the discovery, analysis, and preservation of African indigenous knowledge systems, narratives, and ancient ways of seeing and understanding the world through culture and memory.
Namata Serumaga-Musisi - a Pan Africanist with roots in Uganda. An architecture graduate, her work is intended to facilitate the movement towards decoloniality, focusing on the People of Africa and the Global South, and how we can facilitate the reclamation of African identity as defined by inhabited space and its making. Architecture led Namata to Socialism. She serves as Commander of Creative Arts & Communications with Ghana-based Nkrumahist movement, the Economic Fighters League.
Connie Bell - the co founder of Decolonising the Archive, a cultural producer and memory worker based in the United Kingdom. Connie’s work contributes to the development of strategies and methods for the identification, formation and access of ‘the archive’ by people of African heritage.
Walter Rodney: What They Do ‘t Want You To Know’ premiered at the British Film Institute’s largest screen to a sold-out auditorium. It is a must-watch for those seeking to understand the legacies of empire and colonialism and its impact on the modern world.
This event is organised by Decolonising the Archive (DTA), UK, and the Library Of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD), Ghana.
Special Thanks to The Walter Rodney Foundation & The Ameena Gafoor Institute.
Pocomania is a seminal play written by African-Jamaican activist, feminist and journalist Una Marson in the 1930s. The piece addresses African spiritual practices, classism, identity and mental health. Hailed as Jamaica's national play for its excellent depiction of how a community forms a resilient identity in the midst of oppressive colonial frameworks and class division. The play is now revived and will be staged for it's British debut by Decolonising the Archive's Connie Bell.
In support of our play Pocomania, DTA is offering a community workshop and conversation titled Performing Indigeneity in a New Land : Applied Theatre on 14/01/2023.
We have invited some of the best lived experience professionals in the field of culture, theatre and archives (Shango Baku, Dr. Sarah Dorgbadizi, Dr. Lisa Tomlinson, David Gilbert and Connie Bell)
Learn about this unspoken African Caribbean spiritual ritual, embodied archives, its relevance to mental health in pre & post colonial Britain,
Special talk with Author and Journalist Amandla Thomas Johnson
Tickets go live November 23rd
Enjoy an evening of dinner, poetry and awards and naming ceremony, honouring the great Black Panther Activist, Human Rights and Fair Housing Activist Olive Morris.
The aim of the ceremony is to acknowledge the naming of the Olive Morris Hall positioned aptly at the infamous Karibu Centre, that has housed many a famous community activity within its walls. The ceremony evening is further elevated by an awards ceremony that identifies members/groups within the Black community who have contributed to the liberation of African and Caribbean Communities primarily via community engagement, community enabling, community sharing and development programs and to elevate them on behalf of the wider community via giving them acknowledgement and seeding money towards their development initiatives. Each awardee will be speaking in regards to their respective disciplines so this will also be a nourishing moment to learn and inspire similar modes of study.
We will be celebrating the awards alongside a naming ceremony of a hall in Olive Morris's name if you would like to support the vision get your tickets here.
AUGUST 1st (In person):
EMANCIPATION DAY MASTERCLASS :
THE MEANING OF ECONOMIC REPAIRS FOR AFRICAN REPARATIONS w/ Esther Stanford Xosei @ The Black Cultural Archives 1pm - 5pm BST
Forming part of University of Repair, a platform exploring the practical, methodological and historical approaches to centre repair, Creating Economic Repair: Capitalism, Ubuntu and Spatial Justice re-thinks the relationship between the historical injustices of the past, and our contemporary economic position.
There will be an active marketplace showcasing Ubuntu, Cooperative and Ethical businesses.
Learn, Grow, Share
n this Masterclass, Esther Stanford Xosei, Ramerii Moukam and Connie Bell classify the unseen narratives buried in museums and "their" artefacts as duppies (ghosts); confronting uncomfortable conversations that examine and draw on the retentions from the African artefacts stored at Museum of London, Docklands.
Join us to discover more about your local area, unravel mysteries, and win prizes as a DTA QuizStorian! Step outside of the classroom and into an exciting world of history by attending the QUIZSTORIANS: LEWISHAM launch event.
Decolonising The Archive and Goldsmiths' History Department have teamed up to build new pathways to learning untold histories and building social pride through the dynamic Black and migrant histories of Lewisham. Our online quiz can be played by anyone six years old and above and supports teachers, children and families in teaching and learning about local histories and heritage. We believe that it’s essential that children widen their knowledge about their history. The quiz will give children, families and educators a chance to have fun whilst learning something new.
DTA & Goldsmiths University (Radio Dept.) present a Masterclass workshop with acclaimed playwright Jennifer Farmer on Friday 8th Janurary, 6pm - 7.30pm
This workshop will be hosted online and is FREE but requires registration. Please book your place using the button below.
This will be our last master class prior to submissions of your creative pieces by 13th Jan at 5pm GMT. 5 of the best submissions will be chosen by a star studded panel of Judges which includes Roy Williams, Pam Fraser - Solomon, Connie Bell, Richard Shannon & Kayodeine. These winners will be supported and the winning piece will earn £300 in addition to gaining full production support, casting of actors to perform their piece, recording and airing nationwide!!!
Please submit your 15 - 30 minute piece (play, poetry, monologue etc.) by email using the button below:
Join members of the New Cross Community, DTA and Goldsmiths University in developing a 20 - 30 minute spoken word/dramatic piece inspired by the New Cross Massacre:
commemorating those that we have lost,
calling out race issues in Britain
voicing the aspirations of a community
inspiring a vision of positive movement for us all.
We will be hosting 3 free online workshops to support you in developing your creative piece for public broadcast..
Workshop 1 - Friday 27th November (6.00pm - 7:30pm)
Creating Work For Radio: What to consider w/ Richard Shannon
Workshop 2 - Thursday 3rd December (6.00pm - 7:30pm)
Developing Creative Work Using Archives w/ Decolonising The Archive
Workshop 3 - Date tbc (6- 7:30pm)
Director and Creative Writing Masterclass w/ playwright Roy Williams
The story of a black British teen as he discovers police brutality & the rise of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s & 1970s in West London.
The story of a black British teen as he discovers police brutality & the rise of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s & 1970s in West London.
ARE YOU AN AGENT OF CHANGE? JOIN OUR ONLINE ANTI - RACIST PEDAGOGY WORKSHOP THAT WILL GIVE YOUR WORKSPACE THE TOOLS IT NEEDS TO EVOLVE
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Has the lockdown got you feeling like you're in a bad dream? Unsettled about your life and what lies ahead for people of African heritage in a post-coronavirus world? We hear you and you’re not alone.
On Friday 8th May 2020 at 5pm GMT, tune in to DTA.LIVE for a special pre-launch broadcast hosted by the amazing Pattigift Therapy. African-centred Psychotherapist Rameri Moukam will be taking your calls and offering advice and guidance to help you and those close to you during this time.
The WINDRUSH TIME CAPSULE appears again this October for Deptford X Festival 2019. It will open our Trilogy Series which also includes ‘African Tales From The Hip’ and the launch of the WINDRUSH TIME CAPSULE illustrated publication with a keynote speech from Professor Joan Anim Addo. African Tales From The Hip is a series of ritual dramas, monologues and artistic sketches drawing their inspiration from a range of archive material, including ‘traditional’ African oral narratives.
Progress mobilises spoken word, oral history, animation and more to reflect on the past/present/future of African people wherever we may be. Featuring contributions from performance poet and artist Nadeem Din-Gabisi, stalwart activist and research scientist Altheia Jones-LeCointe, writer Yovanka Paquete Perdigao, author and cultural commentator Professor Carolyn Cooper, academic Andrea Machel , choreographer Adriano Oliviero, UX designer Florence Okoye and curator Neema Githere, posthumous contributions from Dr Walter Rodney, James Baldwin and Amilcar Cabral and a soundtrack from Steam Down, its a powerful 20 minutes that you won't forget.
New Cross and Deptford Free Film Festival and DTA collaborate to present a selection of films around the themes of the WINDRUSH TIME CAPSULE residency. Films to be acompanied by a Q&A and refreshments. Seating is limited so ticket booking essential!
Free drawing workshop. Attendees are invited to consider the themes of migration, displacement, enslavement, reconciliation, community and beauty. Session will be led by illustrator and Lewisham Arthouse resident Sola Olulode and Art Therapist Jean Campbell.
ALL AGES WELCOME
Public drop-in. Sharing space inviting people to contribute their own migration stories to the WINDRUSH TIME CAPSULE. These stories will become part of the installation and beyond that, will be added to DTAs growing archive of Lewisham’s migration history.
Pop-Up exhibition of street artist and illustrator Denio X’s work within the WTC exhibition space. In addition to the large piece created for the WINDRUSH TIME CAPSULE residency, Deanio X showcases further work linking to the residencies themes.
Visit Deanio X’s website here.
