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.

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.

Read during our #ReconstructionWork conversation entitled, ‘Can the Museum be Decolonised?’

Watch the full conversation here.

What can the concept of decolonisation look like in practice and in relation to the museum? We welcomed Ahdaf Soueif, Mohammed Ali, Sado Jirde 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. They discussed 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.

Read more about our #ReconstructionWork series here.