THE PROJECT

What?

for, but not about aims tap into the sensibilities of collective social/ cultural experiences and the influences contemporary black youth culture has on the mainstream - visual information and style (i.e. the fine arts, fashion, the media) music and dance (hip hop, grime) and literature - while engaging in meaningful, reciprocal and critical collaboration with artists with African/ Caribbean heritage. An activity that will in-turn inform the work that follows.

How?

Fully aware of the problems with ‘diversity’ projects our main aspiration is to overcome generalisations associated with working with artists and communities from particular cultural backgrounds by opening issues up to forum for discussion, research, making and sustained collaborative relations. After all we have to start somewhere

Why?

The purpose of undertaking a 3-year research-led project is to establish appropriate terms for engagement from which to develop working relations with diverse young and emerging visual artists and the local community of Ipswich, which compared to other regional centres has a significant population of young people either many generations removed from original settlers or with mixed cultural roots and no single identifiable cultural of heritage.