Eddie Chambers | Articles

Next We Change Earth (2008)

The period of the mid to late 1970s through to the early 1980s was without question one of the most politically, culturally and racially charged periods of Black British history. It was the time in which children of the pioneering generation of African, Caribbean and South Asian immigrants came of age. These immigrants came to the UK through a variety of routes and for a variety of reasons. In the case of Caribbean migrants, who comprised one of the biggest single groups of new post-war arrivals, some – a few - came to pursue and take up professional positions. The vast majority though, came to fill vacancies in manufacturing, healthcare and the service sectors. Broadly speaking, African and South Asian migrants came for much the same sorts of reasons, though South Asian communities were to be distinguished or characterised by entrepreneurial elements amongst them who undertook to work in the retail, restaurant or manufacturing sectors. There was one other important factor that characterised the pioneering South Asian presence in towns and cities across the UK. That is, South Asian immigrants had, for a variety of reasons often come via East African countries such as Uganda, Kenya and (perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent) Tanzania.

The children of these immigrants – for the most part either British born or raised in this country – found themselves coming of age in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The lives of these teenagers took a variety of routes. Then, as now, unemployment affected a disproportionately large number of Black people. Some headed for the Labour Exchange. Reggae group, the Cimarons, were responsible for one of a number of songs lamenting the effect and experience of unemployment of Black British youth. Pointing the finger at society, the group sang “You got me living on the dole…” Other youth took whatever jobs and apprenticeship opportunities they could find and got by as best they could. Aswad memorably summed up the route of delinquency and petty criminality taken by a few: “Problem time like this I've seen youths who've turn to crime/They looking a way to keep their head above the water…” Some youngsters (such as Said Adrus, Keith Piper and Donald Rodney) went into further or higher education.

Then, as now, only the comparative few from the country’s Black communities venture into higher education and within this small number, only a comparative few undertake Fine Art courses. It is for researchers of the future to establish precise patterns of enrolment on the country’s Fine Art courses by Black students, but the formidable impression exists that students such as Adrus, Piper and Rodney - plus those who had gone to other colleges before them – were truly breaking new ground in entering institutions of higher learning to study Fine Art (such as Trent Polytechnic).

The early 1980s were intense, heady and potent times for Black people in England. They had by now established a particular and highly charged presence in various neighbourhoods and communities across the country, the districts in which they lived becoming synonymous with a sometimes fractious but nevertheless unmistakable sense of place, space, and presence. These districts had, during the course of the 1970s, come to symbolise demarcated territory that represented the unmistakable emergence and presence of Black Britain. Within the local and national media, these areas would constantly be cast as quarters of menace, criminality and dysfunctionality. But to many Black people, these districts were, quite simply, home. London had Brixton and Ladbroke Grove (‘the line’); Birmingham, the second city, had Handsworth; Leeds had Chapeltown, Bristol had St. Paul’s; and Nottingham had Hyson Green. As mentioned, these areas were, home to many people from the Commonwealth countries, and to their British-born/raised children. Significantly these districts had all achieved – to varying degrees - ‘frontline’ status.

A number of elements characterised the existence and presence of Black Britain. Although the word was not fashionable at the time, there was a tangible sense of diaspora (with its multiplicity of attendant narratives, such as Black Power, Rastafari and the ‘Dreadlocks’ culture) and a feeling, or belief that Black youth were experiencing racism and disappointment, disaffection and what one sociologist poignantly referred to as ‘endless pressure’.

Within the Hyson Greens and the Brixtons of the country, racism, educational under-achievement, unemployment, inter-generational conflict, homelessness or poor housing, and conflict with the police were all experiences which, to varying degrees, characterised young Black Britain. Time and again within their art practice, Adrus, Piper and Rodney would make work that referenced not only these troubled and vexatious conditions and experiences, but the variety of responses they evoked and provoked.

The frustrations relating to these troubled and vexatious conditions and experiences were vented and given form in the ‘rioting’ that erupted during the mid 1970s and a few years later at the turn of the decade.

The full version of the above text appeared in the catalogue to accompany the exhibition ‘Next We Change Earth’, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 6 September – 26 October 2008

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