Enough is Enough! Although I cannot be there with you today, I am definitely there with you in spirit and solidarity. I am very honoured to witness the inspirational campaign mobilisation that has been spearheaded by Sara Myers, other lead organisers and a significant mass of the general public which calls for Exhibit B, by South African Brett Bailey, to be boycotted and shut down. It shows that despite what we are told about our people being apathetic that we all have demonstrated the ability and capacity to come together around a worthwhile cause. What more worthwhile a cause than one in defence of our African humanity? Whatever the outcomes of this campaign we, the people have already scored a significant victory, why because we have demonstrated in these times, (which will probably at sometime in the future be regarded not only as the best of times but the worst of times), our capacity to rise above a pernicious culture of individualism which in a seductive way induces so many to ignore relevant campaigns unless they feel that the issues concerned impacts them or their families directly. We have shown that we are contrary to the naysayers, able to unify, and to still take collective action around clear goals. The late Frederick Douglas once said: “Show me and oppressed people and I will show you how long they are prepared to endure oppression.” So the challenge for us here today is to ensure that the mobilisation to prevent Exhibit B from going ahead does not dissipate with the desired successful outcome of ensuring that what has been labelled as a show definitely does not go on. We have to ensure that we harness this energy, this creativity, this spirit of cooperation and togetherness to ensure that we grow, sustain and advance a peoples movement which does not stop with the achievement of short term goals, but ensures that we build the power to ensure that no such affronts to our humanity and dignity as peoples of Afrikan heritage continues without serious consequences and remedial action being taken. So that our African humanity is no longer regarded as a tabula rasa that anyone feels the right to write distorted myths about our humanity upon or seeks to control or redefine our narrative of self determined emancipation and agency in defence of our own struggles for collective and individual forms of freedom. For as was said at the famous Nuremburg Tribunal, which was a pivotal moment in the advancement of recognition of crimes against peoples and humanity, “the wrongs which we seek to condemn have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating... and have set in motion evils... (including the veil of white supremacy racism) that leave no home in the world untouched.” True reparations include a restoration of our dignity, humanity, restitution of our human, peoples, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights including our right to have not only have rights in theory but practice; the basic right not to be disrespected, maligned and to be free from anti-Black and the specific form of Afriphobic racism. Ultimately, true reparations must also entail guarantees that harmful and offensive exhibits such as exhibit B do not happen again. We must therefore not allow our movement for true liberation to ebb and ensure that those of you who have made this campaign happen and the masses of our people and other peoples of conscience link up with those who are fighting the battle for holistic reparations to ensure that the mobilisation is sustained and there are sustainable; the gains and victories we have made will not be undone but rather continue to demonstrate the transformative and emancipator power of our coming together. I close with the words of Professor Chinweizu who reminds us that: “the most important aspect of reparation is not the money the campaign may or may not bring: the most important part of reparation is our self-repair; the change it will bring about in our understanding of our history, of ourselves, and of our destiny; the chance it will bring about in our place in the world.” We must rediscover who we truly are and where we are at in history. A world and future without human zoos, contempt and disrespect for our humanity as sentient beings with the ability to assert our agency is possible, let us make sure that through our actions today and beyond that we bring it into being! With utmost respect Sister Esther Stanford-Xosei Co-Vice Chair, PARCOE, (Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe) Statement – Petition against “Exhibit B” We are writing as black individuals as well as leaders of a small Christian fellowship in South East London to protest against the Exhibit B due to be held end of September. It is our view that this planned exhibition is highly insensitive, inappropriate and offensive as well as an act of implicit racism. The story of the most heinous despicable period in human history namely the Trans-Atlantic slavery of African people is not only a highly emotive issue, but is also a story that belongs to us and should be only rightly told purely from an African perspective. We are therefore calling the Barbican centre to take note of the following African proverb which reads; “until the story of the hunt is told by the Lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”. This exhibition is not telling the story of racism from the black persons’ perspective; it instead is actually glorifying the white “artist” and thereby promoting the pervasive ideology of white supremacy. We would never see Jewish actors in a makeshift concentration camp to depict the horrors of anti-Semitism as a form of art. Nor for that matter white actors in a cage enacting the poverty and slums of London in the period of Charles Dickens. So why does the Barbican think it is fitting for Black people to be placed in cages as an expression of “art” and to “challenge” racism? We strongly urge you to think again and withdraw this exhibition at once. There is far more to African history than us being encaged, there are the stories of the amazing courage of the many Black Africans who fought against slavery the remarkable spirit of survival as well as the very rich black history of our ancestor’s achievements that have been conveniently white-washed from the history books or considerably marginalised. The “artist’s” focus seems to be giving a platform to stereotypical images about the worthlessness of black persons on one hand, and one also wonders what unresolved racist attitudes that have not been thoroughly purged from his ancestry are still lurking around in his depiction of “art”, that he seems to be unaware of. The area of racism is an extremely deep issue and therefore the Barbican Centre would be in collusion with perpetuating racist views through this exhibit if it is permitted to go ahead. We will end with a reiteration from the African proverb as follows: “Until the story of the hunt is told by the Lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”. Pastors Colin & Yvonne Mason. Dear Sir Nicholas Kenyon Re: Exhibit B- Barbican staging of 23- 27 September 2014 Action for Southern Africa, ACTSA, the successor organisation to the Anti-Apartheid Movement adds its concerns to those being expressed by many individuals and organisations at the Barbican’s staging of the production Exhibit B. We urge the Barbican to listen and act on these concerns. Many people - black and white, organisations of black people, and organisations active against racism in the UK, including trade unions, object to its staging - believing that whatever the intention of the production, it objectifies black people, it is voyeuristic, exploitative and demeaning. 2014 is the 20th anniversary of South Africa becoming a free and democratic country. The country is dealing with the legacy of apartheid and colonialism, including the doctrine of white supremacy. South Africa is trying to deal with this horrific past and its impact by challenging racism as it builds a democratic, non-racist and non-sexist state through significant processes of reflection, learning, engaging in dialogue and discussion including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Apartheid Museum and Robben Island. This is in contrast to a one-off show that depicts black people as objects, yet does not seem to have involved black people in the development of the concept and production and which many view as voyeuristic. The Barbican itself does not seem to have thought that if it is to stage this production it should proactively engage with the black community in the UK, getting their views rather than simply stage a production and when there is criticism of this dismiss it as an attempt at censorship. One of the key lessons from South Africa is that it is what you do but also how you do it and what is your motive for doing it that is important. To challenge racism requires a sustained commitment, not a one-off production, and there needs to be the active involvement and engagement of those who continue to experience racism. To stage a production that is clearly offensive to many - who view it as a re-enactment of racism, demeaning and patronising and without apparently considering this could be the view - indicates a Barbican that is not sensitive to the views of black people, black organisations and those actively campaigning against racism. ACTSA urges the Barbican to really listen and engage with those who object to its staging of Exhibit B. Yours sincerely Tony Dykes Director Dear Sir Nicholas Kenyon, On 23rd September the Barbican is scheduled to host South African Brett Bailey’s ‘Exhibition B’ that replicates the ‘human zoos’ of earlier colonial times, replicating the objectification of Black bodies to make an ill conceived artistic point. A national campaign has been organised by Birmingham based Sara Myers to have this so-called art show cancelled on the grounds that in replicating the human zoos it reinforces, rather than challenges the racism it is meant to be a commentary on. We agree that this exhibition is an outrage and should be cancelled immediately, for the following reasons. ‘Art’ is not beyond censorship The censorship of art makes people uncomfortable and for good reasons due to freedom of expression. However, the idea that art is beyond censorship is ludicrous. When art is offensive in its nature it is rightly censored, as freedom of expression does not mean that people have the freedom to racially insult. Exhibit B should be rightly censored because it causes grievous racist offense, as demonstrated by the wealth of people opposed to it on these grounds. Objectification of Black bodies Exhibit B continues the objectification of the Black body that was at the heart of the original human zoos. Black flesh is put on exhibit for the world to see. As a performer in Edinburgh asks ‘how do you know we are not entertaining people the same way the human zoos did?’ A performer in Poland, Berthe Njole, had the experience of a group of guys ‘laughing and making comments about my boobs and my body. They didn’t realise I was a human being. They thought I was a statue.’ These same people came back and apologised at the end but this hardly mitigates the reality of objectification; apparently it would have been okay to laugh if she was a statue. There are plenty of periods in the past that require re-examination and artistic representation, so there must be something of particular interest in the Black body that has caught the attention of the director. This objectification is a standard trope of mainstream popular culture, demonstrating how it is at the root of how White populations understand their relationship to Black people. There are better and much more appropriate ways to remind people of the history of human zoos, without recreating them in the flesh. Reinforcement of Black passivity Even if we accept the stated noble intentions to ‘provoke audiences to reflect on the historical roots of today’s prejudices and policies’ we cannot overlook the reality that Black bodies are being used to convey a message to White audiences. This exhibition reproduces the idea that Black people are passive agents, who are used as conduits for White audiences to speak to each other. Bailey himself admits that his methods for the performance are ‘very difficult to get right…the performers are not asked to look with any anger at all. They must work with compassion.’ This is not Black actors speaking for themselves, but being a mouthpiece for the director’s message on race relations. The idea that this is an acceptable relationship is only tenable because we are talking about Black people, who are apparently still viewed as incapable of speaking on our own behalf. It is only because of the power of White privilege that Bailey would conceive of doing this exhibition, that the Barbican would consider hosting it and that there is a debate about whether it is acceptable. To accept the disempowerment (disembodiment even) that this exhibition represents is an insult to the centuries of struggle against racial apartheid that our forebears have been engaged in. If there is a message, a story to tell about the experience of human zoos, it is Black people’s to tell. When the messenger is the message Sometimes the messenger defines the message. Brett Bailey is described by Jan Ryan of UK Arts International as being ‘a South African who has grown up in an environment which has repressed the majority of its people.’ That is clearly disingenuous, he is a South African who grew up as part of a white minority population that oppressed the Black majority in the country. This vastly impacts on his legitimacy in terms of the representations of Black people he chooses to portray. For Bailey to put on this exhibition is akin to a German from the Third Reich organising a piece of ‘art’ that had Jews dressed in prison garb, with numbers tattooed to their arms, locked in a contrived concentration camp. The idea is simply and quite rightly unimaginable. I think we can agree that this would be completely unacceptable and censored without a second thought. The sorrow at the heart of this episode is that no one organising this exhibition saw the most obvious parallel; that both the historical event and its representation by Bailey are a devaluation of Black life, suffering and experience. The experiences being depicted in Exhibit B are a window into one of the most sustained and barbaric periods of human history. There are deep social, political and psychological scars that are still alive today as a result of this history. It is impossible to underestimate the emotional trauma and offense that this can cause to the Black community when handled incorrectly. Exhibit B is a prime example of ‘art’ that offends, that crosses the line into racial exploitation and abuse by objectifying and disempowering Black voices in the articulation of a story that is central to our being. The result is a grotesque parody of suffering, played out by voiceless Black cadavers. It is the worst kind of racism because it is being done in the pretence (or worse perhaps, the belief) that it is progressive. There is no place in a progressive society for Exhibition B, it should be cancelled with immediate effect. We fully support the protests that are planned should the event go ahead. Yours faithfully, Dr Kehinde Andrews, Birmingham City University Nicole Andrews, University of Birmingham Dr Michelle Asantewa, London Metropolitan University Dr Gabriella Beckles-Raymond Dr Chamion Caballero, London South Bank University Monique Charles, University of Warwick Loreen Chikwira, Manchester Metropolitan University Licia Cianetti, University College London Dr Daniel Conway, Open University Dr Justin Cruickshank, University of Birmingham Dr Yogita Goyal, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Rumana Hashem, University of East London Gary Hazeldine, Birmingham City University Nadine Golly, University Lueneburg, Germany Dieuwertje Dyi Huijg, University of Manchester Dr Nisha Kapoor, University of York Dr Karla Kovalová, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic Dr Lisa Long, University of Leeds Valeska Matziol Brendan McGeever, University of Glasgow Dr John Narayan, University of Warwick Dr Lisa Palmer, Newman University Dr Jenny K. Rodriguez, Newcastle University Dr Heather Savigny, Bournemouth University Dr Robbie Shilliam, Queen Mary’s University Dionne Taylor, Birmingham City University Dr Waqas Tufail, University of Liverpool Dr Tom Vickers, Northumbria University Dr Naomi A. Watson, Open University Dr Maureen Winn Oakley, Newman University