People Dem Collective: Who’s Your Icon?
People Dem Collective highlight a need for educational change with Margate mural project, writes Kelly Abbott
Last year People Dem Collective were asked to curate the Festival Margate Now 2020.
As you can imagine, this took deliberation, thought and discussion about how we would do a call-out to Black and Brown artists in the area. Our own lived experience of systemic racism meant we knew the challenges and barriers experienced by Black and Brown artists within the art commissioning and programming world. PDC wanted to get it right, with integrity and care and for it to have a legacy and certainly not be performative. Margate Festival listened to us, and we went ahead.
One of the most exciting activations developed in the festival was the Black British History – Who’s Your Icon? where we asked local Black and Brown artists to draw, paint or sketch their icons. Some of these images were then used to produce a zine designed by @sprankensteinstudio; this zine was then given to local schools for the youts to do the same thing and draw their Black British icons. We also had local spots in town for local young people to drop off their illustrations. The artist @benconnors assisted by local interns @leondreansah and @joshdeny was then commissioned to curate and scale up the young people’s images to create a mural on Margate seafront.
Covid and lockdowns meant that we were unable to finish the original mural, which we had started at Arlington House during last year’s October Black History month. However, we were excited when Dreamland offered us a new spot on the seafront once lockdown was lifted so that we could get the works up and the mural completed.
The response was beautiful. We had work piled high at HQ. What was interesting but not surprising was that many of the youts had drawn Beyoncé and Jay Z – although great Black icons, not British. There was also a real lack of historic icons, which demonstrated to us, teachers and parents what work needed to be done. Black British History is not taught or celebrated within the curriculum as a standard. This small exercise reveals this so easily yet so powerfully and has started the conversation in local schools and in homes as to why and how we address this. We can no longer delete or dismiss our history – after all, Black British History is all our histories. Of course, some of GB’s history is very disturbing and challenging – that does not mean we do not teach the truth, it just means we teach with transparency and care. Our history is beautiful, astonishing, innovative and inspiring.
We are ridiculously happy with the mural, and it doesn’t need to end there... Can you imagine this done year after year as we learn and celebrate our Black British History and the mural visibly demonstrating that knowledge? It’s been great seeing so many people stopping, taking photos, pointing and smiling and the joy it brings to the community and visitors. The mural is a beautiful representation of welcoming a community that has for so long not been welcomed. Visual representation is so important. Welcome to Margate EVERYONE!
INSTA: @peopledemcollcetive WEB: peopledemcollective.com/
