Alberta Whittle talks to Ben Luke about her influences in art, books, music and other media and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Over the last few years, Whittle has emerged as one of the most striking new voices in contemporary British art, especially with her collaborative film installations focusing on battling anti-blackness. Born in 1980 in Bridgetown on the Caribbean island of Barbados, Whittle moved to Birmingham in the UK as a teenager before studying at the Glasgow School of Art—she still lives in Glasgow today but spends some of her time in Barbados. This relationship between her native Caribbean and her Scottish hometown have informed her work from the start, in terms of exploring her own identity and its connection with the histories of colonialism, slavery and systemic racism. Whittle's acclaimed films are a collage of disparate moving images, including found archival material, footage shot on an iPhone and extraordinary performances filmed in beautiful high definition, among other things. In this conversation, she explains her instinct to collaborate with performers, artists and writers, reflects on her love of the art of Frida Kahlo and Hilma af Klint, among many others, and discusses the music she adores, by artists as diverse as Dancehall queen Patra and the late opera singer Jessye Norman. Plus, she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by ARTIKA.

Links for this episode

Alberta Whittle

Shows:

Alberta Whittle: Reset at Jupiter Artland

business as usual: hostile environment at Glasgow Sculpture Studios

Life Support at Glasgow Women’s Library

Sonia Boyce’s exhibition In the Castle of My Skin at MIMA, Middlesborough 

British Art Show 9

Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now at Tate Britain

Sex Ecologies at Kunsthal Trondheim

Scotland + Venice

Discussed in the interview:

The Guardian newspaper’s reporting on the Windrush scandal

Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern, 2005—room guide

Louise Bourgeois at The Easton Foundation

Chris Ofili at David Zwirner

Denzil Forrester at Stephen Friedman Gallery

Hilma af Klint Foundation

Tramway, Glasgow

Fruitmarket, Edinburgh

Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

Transmission, Glasgow

Maryhill Integration Network

Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg

Cry Freedom on Amazon Prime

Kamau Brathwaite at the Poetry Foundation

Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake: On Blackness and Being

Dionne Brand at Penguin Random House

Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work

Jessye Norman’s Spirituals on Spotify and her Spotify page

Tumi Mogorosi’s Project ELO on Spotify and his Spotify page

Patra’s Spotify page

Alberta Whittle’s blog about her Fresh Milk residency in Barbados, including the fete posters

Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln perform Tears For Johannesburg & Triptych (Prayer, Protest)

Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column at the World Monuments Fund

Alberta Whittle’s "accomplices":

Sekai Machache

Mele Broomes

Matthew Arthur Williams

Christian Noelle Charles

Ama Josephine Budge

Yves B Golden

Anushka Naanayakkara

Sabrina Henry

Richy Carey

Basharat Khan

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