Artist LR (Lisa) Vandy shows EMPIRE LINES the ropes in a studio visit to Chatham’s Royal Navy Dockyard in Kent, unravelling entangled imperial and industrial relationships, dance in the African diaspora, and women’s work in abstract sculpture.

In 2022, sculptor LR (Lisa) Vandy relocated her studio from the city of London to Chatham Ropery which, with original machinery from the 19th century, has preserved traditional practices and knowledges. Rope became essential to Britain’s burgeoning maritime industry during the Georgian and Victorian eras, tied to the construction of empires, colonial hierarchies, and sites of slavery. Building in collaboration with the resident Master Ropemakers, her sculptures allude to and playfully subvert the media’s historic associations and legacy now.

From her five-metre-high figure for Liverpool’s Canning Dock, to her new, smaller body of works, Lisa walks through her collection and archive on Kent’s waterfront. Born in Coventry in the Midlands, she shares her experiences of growing up ‘by the sea’ in Sussex as a young person of Nigerian and Irish heritages, and the racialised exclusion some face from leisurely pursuits in natural environments.

Inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2006 book, Dancing In The Streets, Lisa unravels ‘collective joy’ and the central role of Black women. We see how dance has been used to resist oppression across continents, with spirit dances, raves, festivals, and carnival masquerades, interests shared by contemporaries like Theaster Gates, Hew Locke, Romuald Hazoumè, Zak Ové, and Hassan Hajjaj.

Straw-fibre figures recall Grain Mother deities, corn dollies, and Kumpo, spinning dances from the Casamance (Senegal) and Gambia. With her ongoing series of Hulls, comprised of found objects, boats, and fishing floats ‘plundered’ from DIY stores, we discuss her interest in the ‘underbelly of empire’, knotty relationships between rail, sail, and transport, and ‘migrant crises’ in the Mediterranean Sea today. Drawing on her research in museum collections, ancient silverwares, and indigo trade routes, Lisa moves on the discussion about globalised ’African masks’ as symbols of ‘aggressive protection’.

We discuss gender and identity, and how her curvilinear copper sculptures challenge conventional representations of the ‘female form’. Dynamic drawings of tornados tell of her designs for statues in the landscape - role models for those subject to the male gaze - exposing the empowering potential of contemporary art. Plus, Lisa shares why her tactile public artworks are designed to be destroyed.

LR Vandy: Twist runs at the October Gallery in London until 25 May 2024.

Dancing In Time: The Ties That Bind Us, commissioned by Liverpool Museums for the International Slavery Museum’s Martin Luther King celebrations in 2023, stands at the Historic Dockyard Chatham in Kent until 17 November 2024.

For more women working in port cities, read into:

And hear Chris Spring on ‘African’ textiles and Thabo, Thabiso and Blackx by Araminta de Clermont (2010)⁠ at the British Museum in London.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast

And Twitter: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936

Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines