Shade

Art futures & BLM

in conversation with The White Pube

The White Pube is the collaborative identity of art critics Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad. They return as guests to talk about the positive changes they saw and those they hope for in the Arts, as a result of the BLM uprisings.

@tate_united 

@riotgames 

@mark.leckey 

@swarzymacaly 

@thewagaduchronicles 

@theresnosignal

@creativedebuts 

@cubitt_gallery 

@languidhands

I also share my thoughts on the season and our shared Shade community

Shade is produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Please support this work by becoming a Shade Patron

Full season music is composed by Brian Jackson

Mixing & sound design CA Davis

Thank you Kloris for supporting Shade Podcast Season Four

Sign up to Shade Patreon (for as little as £1 monthly) to receive your Kloris gift

New and existing patrons, simply message Shade privately on social media, along with your address, to claim your gift

Support for this episode comes from Convergence at the South London Gallery

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I take you through the origins and manifestations of the raised fist salute, which has more recently been associated with the BLM movement. We move on to my conversation with Nicola Green, the artist behind the work ‘In Seven Days’ - a series created from her unprecedented artistic access to Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign trial.

Nicola Green is renowned for gaining access to iconic personalities from the worlds of politics, religion, and culture, including collaborations with Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama. In 2008 Nicola Green gained artistic access to Obama’s Presidential campaign. She had a front row seat to historic events: from Obama’s DNC nomination speech to Inauguration, Nicola was behind-the-scenes taking photographs, making sketches, and having conversations with press, staff and citizens. I spoke with Nicola about the process of creating this series, and she shares how her own multi race and faith family influences her work.

Inspired by her own mixed-heritage and multi-faith family, she creates and preserves religious, social, and cultural heritage for future generations. Recording these events as they happen, and investing thousands of hours of academic and artistic research, she builds and curates substantial archives. In Seven Days is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery - The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Library of Congress, Washington D.C; and in both the International Slavery Museum and The Walker Art Gallery, in Liverpool

Shade is produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Please support this work by becoming a Shade Patron

Full season music is composed by Brian Jackson

Mixing & sound design CA Davis

Thank you Kloris for supporting Shade Podcast Season Four

Sign up to Shade Patreon (for as little as £1 monthly) to receive your Kloris gift

New and existing patrons, simply message Shade privately on social media, along with your address, to claim your gift!

Support for this episode comes from Convergence at the South London Gallery

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the second episode of the new four-part series of in-conversations exploring anti-racism and the arts, co-curated by Shade and Convergence. This episode is part of the South London Gallery's Convergence Community Film Festival on Saturday 20th February 2021. Our guest today is Courttia Newland.

Courttia wrote the screenplays for Steve McQueen's BBC Small Axe 'Lover's Rock' & 'Red, White & Blue' films. Courttia grew up in west London and published his first novel, The Scholar: A West-Side Story, aged 23, earning critical praise for his portrayal of a teenager’s life in the inner city. Since then he’s written seven more books and eight plays, winning numerous awards for his work. In 2000, he co-edited The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain. In 2021 Courttia's novel A River Called Time was published by Canongate

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With Guest Photographer Andre D Wagner

Gordon Parks’ work was shared widely during the 2020 BLM protests, perhaps to share comfort, solace and act as a collective creative marker acknowledging that our civil justice work continues. My guest Andre shares the impact of Parks’ work on his own photography, his experiences of the protests, plus his working practice & life as a street photographer 

It's such a beautiful episode. Thank you Andre for the conversation

Andre D. Wagner is a photographer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He explores and chronicles the poetic and lyrical nuances of daily life, using city streets, neighborhoods, parades, public transportation and the youth of the twenty first century as his visual language. His work and practice fits into the lineage of street photography that investigates the American social landscape, often focusing his lens on themes of race, class, cultural identity and community. He develops his own black and white negatives and makes silver gelatin prints in his personal darkroom. 

His photographs have been commissioned by The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Cut, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, WSJ, Time Magazine and Vogue, among other publications. For the movie Queen & Slim Andre photographed the key art and the campaigns leading images. His photographs have appeared in a number of solo exhibitions and group shows in Los Angeles, New York and North Carolina. His first monograph, Here For the Ride, was published by Creative Future in 2017. He is currently editing a 7-year-old body of work titled New City, Old Blues, to be published soon

Andre Instagram

Shade is produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Please support this work by becoming a Shade Patron

Full season music is composed by Brian Jackson

Mixing & sound design CA Davis

Thank you Kloris for supporting Shade Podcast Season Four

Sign up to Shade Patreon (for as little as £1 monthly) to receive your Kloris gift

New and existing patrons, simply message Shade privately on social media, along with your address, to claim your gift!

Support for this episode comes from Convergence at the South London Gallery

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest Sophie Williams

Author Anti Racist Ally & Millennial Black

Sophie had a career in advertising, before she left to create her own business, working with clients such as Netflix on projects combining her professional advertising experience with active anti-racism work. 

In the summer of 2020, Sophie posted 10 slides to Instagram outlining how to be an anti-racist ally. Her slides, which were created in response to those outside the Black community wanting to help and be allies, went viral. 

We talk about how our visual culture and the language we use, is a powerful tool in communicating to those outside our own social groups.

Sophie also shares the stats on why Black & brown women are being expelled from workplaces due to discrimination. We are the most entrepreneurial group, why? Because we have to carve out our own work spaces. Sophie shares the evidence 

Shade is produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Please support this work by becoming a Shade Patron

Full season music is composed by Brian Jackson

Mixing & sound design CA Davis

Thank you Kloris for supporting Shade Podcast Season Four

Sign up to Shade Patreon (for as little as £1 monthly) to receive your Kloris gift

New and existing patrons, simply message Shade privately on social media, along with your address, to claim your gift!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Image Focus (click on link below to view image)

Protestors remove statue of Slave Trader, Edward Colston. June 7, 2020, Bristol, UK

Guests

Joshua Virasami, BLM UK Member & Author

George Osei-Prempeh, The Photographers Gallery London

Guests share their personal responses to the statue removal and it’s symbolism within the wider context of the civil rights movement

Shade is produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Please support this work by becoming a Shade Patron 

Full season music is composed by Brian Jackson

Mixing & sound design CA Davis

Thank you Kloris for supporting Shade Podcast Season Four

Sign up to Shade Patreon (for as little as £1 monthly) to receive your Kloris gift

New and existing patrons, simply message Shade privately on social media, along with your address, to claim your gift!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UK BLM Protests

Press Photos

Image Focus: Patrick Hutchinson BLM Protest

Image REUTERS/Dylan Martinez June 13 2020

We discuss the impact of the image from social, cultural and art history perspective

Guests

Lanre Bakare. Arts & Culture correspondent, The Guardian

Carey Robinson. Head of Education, The South London Gallery

Patrick Hutchinson

Shade is produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Please support this work by becoming a Shade Patreon Patron 

Full season music is composed by Brian Jackson

Episode Three additional music by Luke Cage

Mixing & sound design CA Davis

Thank you Kloris for supporting Shade Podcast Season Four

Sign up to Shade Patreon (for as little as £1 monthly) to receive your Kloris gift!

New and existing patrons, simply message Shade via Patreon messenger, and write KLORIS in the subject header, along with your address, to claim your gift

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This bonus series of four co-curated conversations between Shade and Convergence - the South London Gallery’s platform for critical conversations, screenings and written commissions - explores anti-racism and the arts.

This first episode features Kevin Morosky, filmmaker, advertising creative director and co-founder of We are Pocc (the creative network accelerating equality and equity, for culturally and ethnically diverse people in the creative industries) who speaks to Lou Mensah about the role that advertising plays in challenging racism, in our everyday lives. 

Future Convergence + Shade co curated conversations will be released through Feb, March & April, and they will explore the role that film, literature and sound play in challenging racism.

Produced and hosted by Lou Mensah of Shade Podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fashion & the BLM uprisings

Image Focus: British Vogue Cover, The September Issue 2020

American Vogue Covers, The September Issue 2020

Guests

Osman Ahmed, Fashion Features Editor i-D Magazine 

Mariel Tyler, Photographer

(Former Photo Editor of ELLE.COM & Getty)

Shade is produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Please support this work by becoming a Shade Patron 

Full season music is composed by Brian Jackson

Episode Two additional music by Luke Cage

Mixing & sound design CA Davis

Thank you Kloris for supporting Shade Podcast Season Four

Sign up to Shade Patreon (for as little as £1 monthly) to receive your Kloris gift!

New and existing patrons, simply message Shade via Patreon messenger, and write KLORIS in the subject header, along with your address, to claim your gift

Shade Podcast and CONVERGENCE at The South London Gallery have co-curated a four part conversation series asking ’Does the media have the potential to challenge racism?’

SLG’s convergence platform hosts critical conversations, screenings and written commissions, freely available to everyone on their website. For our first talk, on January 23rd 2021, Shade Podcast will be in conversation with Kevin Morosky, filmmaker, senior advertising creative and co founder of POCC - the network accelerating equality and equity, for culturally and ethnically diverse people in the creative industries. The talk will be available from January 23rd, on the South London Gallery website and also on your podcast app as bonus Shade content….enjoy! 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest Paul Moakley Editor at Large, Special projects TIME Magazine

Image ‘The Overdue Awakening’ TIME, June 2020 Photographer Devin Allen

Produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music composed for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson Copyright Brian Jackson/Shade Podcast

Mixing & sound design CA Davis

Available on all podcast apps & Shade Website

Please support this work by becoming a Shade Patron

Season 4 is supported by Kloris

Thank you so much Kloris for supporting Shade this season! Sign up to Shade Patreon to receive your Kloris subscriber gift

Existing Shade Patreons, please message Shade via Patreon messenger and write 'KLORIS GIFT' in the subject header to claim your gift

Patreon support for this episode is supported by The British Film Institute

The British Film Institute have provided memberships for 6 Shade Patreon patrons

Please listen to the episode for details on how to apply!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.