About If Mi Nuh Laugh Mi Cry: Hackney Art Activism Festival

The work was commissioned by Shelby Studios / Arts Council England as part of the Hackney Art Activism Festival.

The work developed from an invitation to produce a communicative visual response and interpretation of and Alicia Grahams lecture of being a child who’s father died in police custody. This was presented alongside Celia Stubbs’ lecture and historical critique of the high profile death of her anti-racist campaigner and partner Blair Peach as a result of being struck by a police officer in 1979. This included Celia’s account of on-going police targeting, monitoring and surveillance into the 1990s. The work was presented as a scheduled part of festival and specific event to engage with authors.

The work explored the novel layering of multi-media formats to construct new compositions that shift from two-dimensional imagery and develop movement and three-dimensional spaces that shift back in time. It engaged zine aesthetics that seamlessly trigger unexpected imagery that unify historic references and associations and repopulate liminal spaces that reconstruct and curate cultural associations through the media. The visual materials were composed from personal photography and collections provided by the families’ own archives, reconfigured for the first time to curate an account that represents the interrelationships and experiences of the time as part of a collaborative and participatory process of co-creation.