What is the word ‘Black’ in ‘Black Cultural Institutions’? Why does it seem like there are so few black-led arts organisations in the UK that are outside of London? What does it mean to operate within or without the mainstream? We invite an intergenerational panel to come together and reflect on the challenges of building and sustaining Black arts and culture institutions in Britain.

The conversation, hosted by Stuart Hall Foundation on 19th July 2022 was chaired by art curator Ian Sergeant, and featured Gilane Tawadros, Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation, Lisa Anderson, Director of the Black Cultural Archive, Marlene Smith, former member of the BLK Art Group and current Director of The Room Next to Mine, and MAIA Group’s Creative Director, Amahra Spence.

Find out more about our #ReconstructionWork Series here.

#ReconstructionWork: Building Black Cultural Institutions’ was supported by Arts Council England.

The state backlash against the mass protests for racial justice in June 2020 is well underway. A reaction punctuated by the recent passing of the Police, Crimes and Sentencing Bill, which has increased the maximum penalty for criminal damage to a memorial from three months to ten years. As the state rushes to protect its memorials, this conversation focuses on questions of memory to ask: who speaks for the past?

For this event in the #ReconstructionWork series, the Stuart Hall Foundation welcomed artists and educators Barby Asante and Shawn Sobers to discuss the ways in which events can be remembered and misremembered, offering a space to interrogate the politics of memory.

‘#ReconstructionWork: Whose Memorials?’ is produced in partnership with the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE).

Supported by Arts Council England.

This event took place online.

How can we make sense of the concept of ‘care’ in today’s political and economic landscape? After twelve years of austerity, large scale public funding cuts to education, state support for low-income communities, and essential healthcare services have all led to a crisis of care – a crisis thrown into sharp relief by the Covid-19 pandemic and the structural inequalities it continues to amplify.

In this event, Dharmi Kapadia who led on the recent NHS Race and Health Observatory Report on ethnic inequalities in healthcare, and Dzifa Afonu, artist and clinical psychologist, reflected on the concept of care in relation to austerity, institutional inequalities, and the ways communities have built and are building networks of care in response.

#ReconstructionWork: The Politics of Care was produced in partnership with the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE).

Supported by Arts Council England.

Land both contributes and is affected by climate change. It is the frontlines of the climate crisis where livelihoods, resources and inherited knowledge are fought for against industrial extraction, the militarism of imperial ventures, and colonialism’s erasure of indigenous epistemologies. This conversation asks how land is central to efforts to both deepen and circumvent the crisis?

For this #ReconstructionWork event the Stuart Hall Foundation welcomes three leading climate activists: Abeer M. Butmeh , Dr Hamza Hamouchene and Sam Siva to share their experiences, imaginings and reflections around land and the climate crisis.

Part of our Contextualising Climate Crisis series and our #ReconstructionWork online conversation series.

Supported by Arts Council England

The Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 produced an unprecedented amount of public statements from corporate media in support of the movement. Such media usually shy away from making political pronouncements, especially around racism. This was particularly the case for the publishing industry which research shows remains the whitest and most privileged cultural sector.

In this event, join Margaret Busby and Anamik Saha as they discuss how publishing can better engage with questions of race, and whether this recent reckoning with racism, expressed in the BLM statements realised by nearly all the major publishing houses, can lead to meaningful change and transformation.  Introduced by Bridget Byrne, Director of CoDE.

With British Sign Language interpretation.

This event was produced in partnership with the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE).

Supported by Arts Council England.

Our #ReconstructionWork online conversation series continues with another special event with support from Arts Council England.

In the global north and south, low-income communities are the first to experience the impacts of pandemics, water scarcity, power shortages, poor air quality and subpar living standards, which amplify vulnerabilities to extreme weather conditions. These communities are also agents of potent political resistance who have consistently advanced community-based solutions to the climate crisis that are often ignored, or silenced, by the mainstream.

On Tuesday 26th October, the Stuart Hall Foundation welcomed Jhannel Tomlinson, Cofounder of the Young People for Action Jamaica and GirlsCARE and is also the Sustainability Lead for the JAWiC board, and Leon Sealey-Huggins, Lecturer in Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick, to discuss intersectional approaches to addressing the climate crisis and its colonial roots. Coinciding with COP26, Jhannel and Leon will share their experiences, think through examples of community-based organising against climate antagonisms, and complicate corporate-led solutions to addressing climate change.

This event is a part of the Contextualising Climate Crisis Series. Read more here.

On Wednesday 7th July, the Stuart Hall Foundation an online roundtable as part of their #ReconstructionWork series to think through the possibilities of decolonising the museum. The event included short presentations from the panel of guest speakers followed by a chaired discussion:

• Mohammed Ali, Artist/Curator, Founder of Soul City Arts and Trustee of Birmingham Museums

• Sado Jirde, Director, Black South West Network

• Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Writer and Poet

• Ahdaf Soueif, Writer

• Intro: Bridget Byrne, Director, the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE)

• Chair: Orsod Malik, Digital Content Curator, Stuart Hall Foundation

What can the concept of decolonisation look like in practice and in relation to the museum? We welcomed Ahdaf Soueif, Mohammed Ali and Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan to share their experiences working within and without the museum to examine whether or not the museum can be a space for realising disruptive and radical possibilities. The panel explored what and who the museum is for, the relationship between the museum and the construction of racial hierarchies as well as the museum’s entanglements with the history and legacies of colonisation.

In partnership with the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) with support from Arts Council England.

On Tuesday 11th May, the Stuart Hall Foundation and the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) hosted a conversation between James Nazroo, Fellow of the British Academy and Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, and award-winning director and choreographer, Lanre Malaolu, to explore the racial inequalities and injustices that surround mental health in the UK. The event included an introduction from Child Psychotherapist, Psychoanalyst and Trustee of the Stuart Hall Foundation, Becky Hall.

Read more about our #ReconstructionWork project.

Speakers:

Becky Hall moved from post graduate work in the field of Literature and post-coloniality to train as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic. She subsequently trained as a Psychoanalyst at the British Psychoanalytic Association (BPA). She has worked for many years in NHS services for children and families and has developed a special interest in work with Looked After children, Adoption and parental mental health. She currently works in the NHS and in private practice with children, adolescents and adults. She teaches Infant Observation, writes and is an active member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists. Becky is Stuart Hall’s daughter and a Trustee of the Stuart Hall Foundation.

James Nazroo is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, founding and Deputy Director of the ESRC Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE), co-PI of the Synergi Collaborative Centre, which is investigating ethnic inequalities in severe mental illness, and founding and co-Director of the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing (MICRA). Issues of inequality and social justice have been the primary focus of his research. Central to his work on ethnicity/race has been developing an understanding of the links between racism, socioeconomic inequality and health. This work has covered a variety of elements of social disadvantage, how these relate to processes of racism, and how these patterns have changed over time.

Lanre Malaolu is an award-winning director, choreographer, and writer working across theatre and film. Lanre creates groundbreaking work merging movement and dialogue to tell socially engaged stories about our world. A unique element of his work stems from Rudolf Laban’s movement psychology, to build dynamic and bold choreography charged with truth. Lanre was commissioned by Camden Peoples Theatre to create ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM which transferred to the Roundhouse in 2019. He was choreographer for DEAR MR. SHAKESPEARE (Sundance Film Festival, 2017). THE CIRCLE premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest, won Best dance film award at Leeds International Film Festival, and was picked up by The Guardian in 2020. THE CONVERSATION won Best Dance Film at Aesthetica Festival & San Francisco Dance Film Festival 2020.

 

Shiv Malik, and Susanna Rustin explore how intergenerational inequality, and the economic reality on which it has been based, has changed our politics and what this might mean for the future. In the last decade, intergenerational inequality has been at the fore of political argument, alongside other inequalities such as class, race, sex, with which the left has traditionally been engaged.

Read more about our #ReconstructionWork project here.

Speakers:

Shiv Malik is a technologist, author, broadcaster and former investigative journalist. He began his career reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan and subsequently worked for the Guardian for five years breaking exclusive front page stories on everything from UK government social policy to secret ISIS documents. He is a co-founder of the think-tank, the Intergenerational Foundation and the author of two books, the 2010 cult economics book Jilted Generation and The Messenger an intrepid personal tale about a relationship with a terrorist-cum-fatasist, published by Faber last year. He has been a full time contributor to the open source project Streamr, since 2017, where he evanglises about a new decentralised data economy and data ownership.

Susanna Rustin is a social affairs leader writer for the Guardian. She covers a range of topics including education, health, housing and environment for the leader (“Guardian view”) column. She has worked at the Guardian for 18 years and previous roles have included deputy opinion editor, feature writer, and deputy editor of the Saturday Review. Susanna lives in Queen’s Park, London, where she is a councillor on London’s only parish/community council. She has been a trustee of the Stuart Hall Foundation since it was set up. Stuart (her uncle by marriage) was an important figure in her life. Susanna went to a comprehensive school in London and studied at York university and Birkbeck College.

Catherine Hall and Ruth Ramsden-Karelse discuss the Legacies of British Slave Ownership. They explore the importance of new histories, reparations, working to decolonise education and shifting collective memories to imagine new futures.

The most recent wave of Black Lives Matter protests rejuvenated popular debates over the removal of statues of British slave owners from public spaces. The fall of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol and calls to remove statues of Winston Churchill, Lord Nelson and Cecil Rhodes has forced the British public to reconsider questions of history and colonial legacies.

Read more about our #ReconstructionWork project here.

Speakers:

Catherine Hall is Emerita Professor of History and Chair of the Centre of the Study of British Slave-ownership at UCL. She has written extensively on the history of Britain and its empire including Civilising Subjects (2002) Macaulay and Son (2012) and, with others, Legacies of British Slave-ownership (2014). From 2009-2016 she was principal investigator on the LBS project www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs. She is currently writing a book on Edward Long, Jamaica and racial capitalism. She is a trustee of the Stuart Hall Foundation.

Ruth Ramsden-Karelse is founder and co-convener of the Oxford Queer Studies Network and a DPhil candidate in the English Faculty at the University of Oxford. The inaugural Stuart Hall Doctoral Studentship, in association with Merton College, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities and the Stuart Hall Foundation, supports her research on the world-making capacity of collaborative works by self-described gays and girls from communities formerly classified “Coloured” in Cape Town, South Africa, from 1950 to the present, with a specific focus on the Kewpie Photographic Collection. Ruth’s writing has appeared in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies.

This panel thought through the connections between education and policing, the expansion of prevent, and ideas around alternative curriculums. • Zahra Bei, No More Exclusions • John Holmwood, People’s Review of Prevent, University of Nottingham • Remi Joseph-Salisbury, University of Manchester, CoDE • Bridget Byrne, University of Manchester, CoDE Part of the ‘Racial Inequality in Times of Crises’ conference (31st October-3rd November), hosted by Stuart Hall Foundation and Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE). See more information about the conference. 

This session focused on the state of queer activism in the UK, coalition building in times of crises, and queer class politics. • Omie Dale, UK Black Pride • Jason Okundaye, The Guardian • Saskia Papadakis, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants • Ruth Ramsden-Karelse, ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry (Chair) Part of the ‘Racial Inequality in Times of Crises’ conference (31st October-3rd November), hosted by Stuart Hall Foundation and Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE). See more information about the conference.

The panel discussed the legacies of covid, draw connections between cost of living crisis and healthcare, and the impacts of privatisation on low-income communities. • Laia Bécares, Kings College London, CoDE • Jabeer Butt, Race Equality Foundation • Dawn Edge, University of Manchester • Dharmi Kapadia, University of Manchester, CoDE (Chair) Part of the ‘Racial Inequality in Times of Crises’ conference (31st October-3rd November), hosted by Stuart Hall Foundation and Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE). See more information about the conference.

The panel focused on responses to the cost of living crisis and the housing crisis, impact on low-income communities, and resistance to the crisis. • Nigel de Noronha, University of Nottingham • Stuart Hodkinson, University of Leeds • Samir Jeraj, The New Statesman • Ruby Lott-Lavigna, openDemocracy (Chair) Part of the ‘Racial Inequality in Times of Crises’ conference (31st October-3rd November), hosted by Stuart Hall Foundation and Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE). See more information about the conference.

5th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation – ‘Manufacturing Dissent: Moments of Solidarity’ took place on 3rd February 2022, with speakers Raymond Antrobus, David Austin, Liz Fekete, Catherine Hall, Sado Jirde, Farzana Khan, Pragna Patel, Fatima Rajina, Gilane Tawadros and Joshua Virasami. Chaired by Gary Younge.

A year on from the global political protests for racial equality, and through a period marked by growing inequality, intolerance and authoritarianism in Britain and across the globe, we invited speakers to respond to these questions: Is there a discourse capable of speaking to a wide range of people from different backgrounds? What social, cultural, political, and economic differences can coalitions transcend? How can difference be expressed within a collective whilst maintaining cohesion? How can we move from forming coalitions/alliances towards a more unified and transformative politics fit for our times?

Our Public Conversation event has been our yearly moment to pause and reflect, inviting an audience to engage with the work of artists and thinkers on a chosen theme that responds to recent political, cultural and social changes. Previous years have pursued themes through multiple lenses, providing a chance for questions and discussion, and punctuated with interventions by poets, artists and musicians that open up a different space for thinking.

 

“How can we organise these huge, randomly varied, and diverse things we call human subjects into positions where they can recognise one another for long enough to act together, and thus to take up a position that one of these days might live out and act through as an identity? Identity is at the end, not the beginning, of the paradigm. Identity is what is at stake in political organisation. It isn’t that subjects are there and we just can’t get to them. It is that they don’t know yet that they are subjects of a possible discourse. And that always in every political struggle, since every political struggle is always open, is possible either to win their identification or lose it.” – Stuart Hall, ‘Subjects in History: Making Diasporic Identities’ (1998) from ‘Selected Writings on Race and Difference’ published by Duke University Press, 2021.

Supported by Arts Council England.

4th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation: Movement and Stillness: Art in a Time of Crisis and Upheaval with Linton Kwesi Johnson, Roger Robinson and Jay Bernard on 3rd February 2021.

 

What is the role of art in a time of crisis and upheaval? Is it to speak up and speak out against injustice or to provide a space of quiet reflection? Should protest and movement take precedence over stillness and contemplation? And what part does imagination play in shaping alternative futures? Join us for our 4th Annual Public Conversation, which took place online this year, to welcome three of Britain’s leading artists and poets, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Roger Robinson and Jay Bernard as they came together to read and reflect on the role of art and poetry in our turbulent times.

 

Since 2018, our Public Conversation event has been our yearly moment to pause and reflect, inviting an audience to engage with the work of artists and thinkers on a chosen theme that responds to recent political, cultural and social changes taking place. Previous years have pursued themes through multiple lenses, providing a chance for questions and discussion, and punctuated with interventions by poets, artists and musicians that open up a different space for thinking.

Instead of charging for tickets, we are inviting audiences to make a donation which will help towards the cost of our public programme – Donate here  

“Poetry for me was a cultural weapon in the black liberation struggle” – Linton Kwesi Johnson Linton Kwesi Johnson discusses the role of the poet with Roger Robinson, Jay Bernard and Stuart Hall Foundation Chair, Gilane Tawadros in this excerpt from the 4th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation entitled: ‘Movement and Stillness: Art in a Time of Crisis and Upheaval’. On the 3rd of February 2021, we welcomed three of Britain’s leading artists and poets, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Roger Robinson and Jay Bernard as they came together to read and reflect on the role of art and poetry in our turbulent times for our 4th Annual Public Conversation. Since 2018, our Public Conversation event has been our yearly moment to pause and reflect, inviting an audience to engage with the work of artists and thinkers on a chosen theme that responds to recent political, cultural and social changes taking place. Previous years have pursued themes through multiple lenses, providing a chance for questions and discussion, and punctuated with interventions by poets, artists and musicians that open up a different space for thinking.  

Our third Annual Public Conversation pursued the theme of Resistance through multiple lenses. The event, which took place on Saturday 8th February, welcomed special guests; multidisciplinary artist and designer Bahia Shehab, journalist and author Jack Shenker, investigative journalist Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi, sociologist Yusef Bakkali, and jazz pianist and composer Nikki Yeoh. The afternoon was chaired by Professor Ethel Brooks. Watch a selection from the day’s sessions: – Keynote from Jack Shenker 00:00:04​ – Discussion panel with, Yusef Bakkali, Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi and Jack Shenker, chaired by Ethel Brooks 00:30:33​ – Stuart Hall Foundation Chair Gilane Tawadros, introduces Nikki Yeoh 1:25:50​ – Performance from Nikki Yeoh 1:26:43​ www.stuarthallfoundation.org

This panel, part of the ‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ conference (9-12 March), will explore the nature of racial inequalities and the politics of ‘race’ in the cultural industries. It will explore the impact of barriers and obstacles (and at times ‘opportunities’) facing racialised peoples in the creative sector, and how movements around access and representation fare in a time of crisis.

• Nike Jonah, Creative Producer, Counterpoint Arts

• Anamik Saha, University of Goldsmiths, CoDE

• Alex Wheatle, Writer

• K Biswas, Writer and Director of Resonance FM and Racebeat (Chair)

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Covid-19 has highlighted and exacerbated deeply entrenched racial and ethnic inequalities in the UK across a range of social arenas. The crisis has thrown existing inequalities into sharp relief, and in order to address this we must start to map and understand these key impacts of the current crisis moment.

‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ is a week-long conference exploring the impact of Covid-19 on ethnic minority people in the UK. The event takes place online each day at 5pm from Tuesday 9th to Friday 12th March, and is hosted in partnership between Stuart Hall Foundation, the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) and Runnymede Trust.

We invited researchers and practitioners working across the fields of sociology, history, art, media, activism, politics, and healthcare to take part in a series of live online presentations and discussions that focus on a number of areas impacted by Covid-19: ‘Policing the Crisis’, Health and Well-being, Employment and Young People, and Culture and Cultural Activism.

Covid-19 has induced the biggest shock to the UK economy seen in modern times and, without significant government action, the effect on the labour market will be severe. In this session, which is part of the ‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ conference (9-12 March), we will explore how existing ethnic inequalities both in employment and in the transition from compulsory schooling through higher and further education into work may be exacerbated by the crisis with negative consequences for poverty and inequality.

• Andrea Barry, Senior Analyst, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

• Sandra Kerr, Race Director, Business in the Community

• Omar Khan, Director, TASO

• Ken Clark, University of Manchester, CoDE (Chair)

Panel was the third panel discussion in the ‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ conference (9-12 March), hosted by Stuart Hall Foundation, Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) and Runnymede Trust.

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Covid-19 has highlighted and exacerbated deeply entrenched racial and ethnic inequalities in the UK across a range of social arenas. The crisis has thrown existing inequalities into sharp relief, and in order to address this we must start to map and understand these key impacts of the current crisis moment.

‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ is a week-long conference exploring the impact of Covid-19 on ethnic minority people in the UK. The event takes place online each day at 5pm from Tuesday 9th to Friday 12th March, and is hosted in partnership between Stuart Hall Foundation, the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) and Runnymede Trust.

We invited researchers and practitioners working across the fields of sociology, history, art, media, activism, politics, and healthcare to take part in a series of live online presentations and discussions that focus on a number of areas impacted by Covid-19: ‘Policing the Crisis’, Health and Well-being, Employment and Young People, and Culture and Cultural Activism.

Ethnic minority people have experienced a much higher risk of COVID-19 related death, a stark disproportion that has impacted on all ethnic and religious minority groups. In this session, which is part of the ‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ conference (9-12 March), we will explore how these inequalities mirror longstanding inequalities in health and well-being, which themselves reflect deep social and economic disparities underpinned by racism, and the approaches to address them.

• Natalie Creary, Programme Delivery Director, Black Thrive

• James Nazroo, University of Manchester, CoDE

• Parth Patel, Research Fellow, IPPR

• Dharmi Kapadia, University of Manchester, CoDE (Chair)

Panel was the second panel discussion in the ‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ conference (9-12 March), hosted by Stuart Hall Foundation, Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) and Runnymede Trust.

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Covid-19 has highlighted and exacerbated deeply entrenched racial and ethnic inequalities in the UK across a range of social arenas. The crisis has thrown existing inequalities into sharp relief, and in order to address this we must start to map and understand these key impacts of the current crisis moment.

‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ is a week-long conference exploring the impact of Covid-19 on ethnic minority people in the UK. The event takes place online each day at 5pm from Tuesday 9th to Friday 12th March, and is hosted in partnership between Stuart Hall Foundation, the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) and Runnymede Trust.

We invited researchers and practitioners working across the fields of sociology, history, art, media, activism, politics, and healthcare to take part in a series of live online presentations and discussions that focus on a number of areas impacted by Covid-19: ‘Policing the Crisis’, Health and Well-being, Employment and Young People, and Culture and Cultural Activism.

The emergence of the Black Lives Matters movement is marked by the deaths (incomplete lives) of minoritised people who encountered the police. This panel will explore experiences of policing during the pandemic, campaigning and activism in response to this, and the factors that perpetuate policing by force in the face of campaigning.

• Deborah Coles, Executive Director, INQUEST

• Leslie Thomas QC, Garden Court Chambers

• Patrick Williams, Manchester Metropolitan University, CoDE

• Scarlet Harris, University of Manchester, CoDE (Chair)

Part of the ‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ conference (9-12 March), hosted by Stuart Hall Foundation, Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) and Runnymede Trust.

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Covid-19 has highlighted and exacerbated deeply entrenched racial and ethnic inequalities in the UK across a range of social arenas. The crisis has thrown existing inequalities into sharp relief, and in order to address this we must start to map and understand these key impacts of the current crisis moment.

‘Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ is a week-long conference exploring the impact of Covid-19 on ethnic minority people in the UK. The event takes place online each day at 5pm from Tuesday 9th to Friday 12th March, and is hosted in partnership between Stuart Hall Foundation, the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) and Runnymede Trust.

We invited researchers and practitioners working across the fields of sociology, history, art, media, activism, politics, and healthcare to take part in a series of live online presentations and discussions that focus on a number of areas impacted by Covid-19: ‘Policing the Crisis’, Health and Well-being, Employment and Young People, and Culture and Cultural Activism.

To celebrate the launch of Ting-Ting Cheng’s On the Desert Island, the outcome of the first ever Stuart Hall Library Artist’s Residency, Ting-Ting was in conversation with Stephanie Moran, Iniva’s Library Manager.

Offering a unique way to explore Iniva’s remarkable collection, On the Desert Island takes its cue from Professor Stuart Hall speaking to Sue Lawley on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in February 2000. On the long-running radio show, the presenter asks the guest to punctuate their conversation with eight records they would choose to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island. Ting-Ting Cheng draws on the recording of Professor Stuart Hall’s interview to create an audio map which imagines the Stuart Hall Library as islands with its bookshelves and contents as land mass to be negotiated.

Find our more about the Stuart Hall Library Residency here.   

The Stuart Hall Library Residency has been jointly funded by Iniva and the Stuart Hall Foundation.

Stuart Hall Foundation Film by Jess Hall and Richard Harrington.

Inspired by the life and work of Professor Stuart Hall, the Stuart Hall Foundation is committed to public education, addressing urgent questions of race and inequality in culture and society through talks and events, and building a network of SHF scholars and artists in residence. 

Find out more about what we do here.  

Director and Producer: Daisy Samuel and Julia dos Santos

Interviewer:  Daisy Samuel

Camera Operator: Stanley Leung

Sound Recordist: Ana Beatriz Oliva

Editor: Liron Zisser

Goldsmiths, University of London

Originally Published by the Media Education Foundation

The Media Education Foundation presents a newly discovered recording of a seminal lecture now available for viewing. The late cultural theorist Stuart Hall was one of the great intellectual and political figures of recent history. His voice is more necessary than ever in these unprecedented times. In this 2004 lecture – the basis of one of his most important essays – he demonstrates what made his theoretical contributions so relevant to contemporary events. As Professor Susan Douglas of the University of Michigan says, “Here we see a stunning (and exemplary) display of Stuart’s brilliant ability to move between the theoretical and the often quotidian examples he would use to illustrate theory, and make it more clear. With virtually no notes and barely a pause, Stuart offers, by turns, an astute, dexterous, probing and, as always, humble disquisition about the relationship between biography and intellectual work. His reflections on the processes – the work, the struggles, the misrecognitions – that go into thinking are inspiring and comforting. For those of us who have always thought that hearing Stuart speak brought his written work to life, and who deeply miss, still, his brilliance and his humanity, Through the Prism of an Intellectual Life is a blessing. This tour de force is a must watch.”

“Stuart Hall was a great intellectual freedom fighter and theoretical genius as manifest in this famous lecture! Don’t miss it.”

– Cornel West

“What a phenomenal gift! This recording of Stuart Hall’s talk at the Caribbean Reasonings conference offers us exceptional insight into the person, the politics, the method, the vision, and their profound interconnectedness. Those who already know his work will be awe-struck and those for whom this serves as an introduction will surely want more.”

– Angela Davis

“Stuart Hall was always a uniquely gifted lecturer, but he never spoke more eloquently than he does in this magnificent talk, given at a crucial biographical moment for him, on a late return to the Caribbean. We see and hear him in inspirational mood, weaving together an astonishingly fluent synthesis of the key ideas from all the different stages of his work. Here is that astonishing combination of personal warmth, rhetorical splendour and intellectual seriousness which characterised his manner – which is so engaging as to make one want to stand up and join in the ovation he receives at the lecture’s end.”

– David Morley

“In these extraordinarily challenging times, Stuart Hall remains, even after his death, a unique voice for “the vocation of the intellectual life.” In this emblematic lecture, he both elaborates and demonstrates how to be a political intellectual, how to understand the complexity and contingency of the present conjuncture in ways that will enable people to more effectively resist the forces at work, the systems of power, injustice and inequality. Hall challenges us to think what it means to think, and how to make thinking matter.”

– Larry Grossberg