As 2021 draws to a close, the UAL Decolonising Arts Institute (DeAI) is embarking on 2 major projects to transform UK collections: Towards a National Collection (TaNC) and 20/20. DeAI was awarded £3 million from the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to lead the 3-year project, Transforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation and Heritage, which aims to address bias and dissolve barriers within and between collections. 20/20 is a parallel 3-year national commissioning and network programme to catalyse artist’s careers and change in collections leading to 20 new permanent acquisitions. 20/20 is supported by grants of £300K from Arts Council England and £300K from the Freelands Foundation.

Now 3 years into its development, DeAI’s work is integral to UAL’s commitment to embedding anti-racism within the institution. Institute Director, Professor susan pui san lok, Institute Manager, Clare Pattenden, and their small but dedicated team of staff, project-based researchers and Associates are driving critical and positive change in the wider arts, culture and heritage sector. Here, we explore the Institute’s story so far.

After Black Artists & Modernism

Professor susan pui san lok has led the development of the Decolonising Arts Institute since 2018 and was appointed Director in 2019, when DeAI entered its pilot phase, with a mission to challenge colonial legacies and disrupt ways of seeing, listening, thinking and making.

Building on the legacy of the Black Artists & Modernism project (BAM), the Institute continued to work with the heritage sector, with a focus on developing partnerships and collaborative initiatives to enhance the visibility, understanding and impact of postcolonial, decolonial and intersectional thinking and practice.

BAM was a landmark, 3-year research project led by UAL in partnership with Middlesex University, funded by the AHRC. Running from 2015 to 2018, the project addressed the often-overlooked connections and tensions between Black British artists’ practice and Modernism. Over 30 public art collections across the UK supported and participated in the research. Professor Sonia Boyce OBE, artist and Chair in Black Art & Design at UAL, was Principal Investigator with Dr susan pui san lok and Dr David Dibosa as the project’s Co-Investigators.

The BAM project was underpinned by an audit of artworks by Black artists in UK public collections, led by Dr Anjalie Dalal-Clayton (DeAI Research Fellow). The research led to 2 international conferences, a UK-based symposium, and several study days, displays and exhibitions. These included Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition , curated by Hammad Nasar (DeAI Principal Research Fellow) with Kate Jesson at Manchester Art Gallery, which opened in May 2018 and ran for 11 months.

In July 2018, a BBC documentary explored the BAM research team’s discovery of over 2,000 artworks by artists of African and Asian descent held in 30 out of the UK’s 3,000 public art collections. Making up between 1% and 4% of their holdings, many of them had rarely, if ever, been displayed. Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain’s Hidden Art History was presented by Brenda Emmanus and Sonia Boyce and featured interviews with ground-breaking artists from the Windrush generation, 60s counterculture revolution and Black Arts movement of the 80s.

Decolonising Archives and Collections

In 2020, the Institute launched the Decolonising Archives residency programme to introduce critical, decolonial approaches to UAL’s own archives and collections, in partnership with UAL Archives and Special Collections. In 2021, the Institute expanded its residencies through partnerships with iniva and 3 major collections: Arts Council Collection, British Council Collection and Manchester Art Gallery, with support from the Art Fund.

From summer 2020 to spring 2021, Institute events encouraged dialogues among UAL students and staff with conversations and roundtables on a variety of subjects for UAL’s 2021 Research Season. Public events included a series of seminars with the British Art Network on Decentering, Resituating and Reviewing Artworks and Collections in November 2020. These were followed by the Curating Nation workshops led by Hammad Nasar and the British Art Network’s Black British Art sub-group to coincide with the opening of British Art Show 9 in Wolverhampton. The touring show explores how existing narratives of British art could be expanded through curatorial and art historical interventions.

Throughout 2021, the Institute has collaborated with the Contemporary Art Society to produce a seminar/workshop programme for sector professionals called DOING THE WORK: Embedding anti-racism and decolonisation into museum practice. A series of 6 reports and an executive summary will be published in the new year.

Covid x BLM Index

In response to Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, DeAI compiled the Covid x BLM Index in collaboration with UAL London College of Fashion’s Cultural and Historical Studies team. This bank of recommended reading, listening and viewing material aims to amplify the voices of those disproportionately affected by the pandemic and racism. The first edition was published online in January 2021, with plans for a second edition in 2022. UAL staff and students are welcome to contribute and can add to this resource document directly.

2022 and beyond…

DeAI recently welcomed several new Associate researchers from across the University through UAL’s Institutes Associates Scheme, which invites academics to become affiliated to and undertake temporary projects with an Institute. The Institutes will introduce Associates’ projects through a joint event during UAL’s 2022 Research Season.

In the new year, DeAI will be publishing 2 podcasts series created by Institute Fellows Dr Ileana Selejan and Dr Khairani Barokka, as well as essays and podcasts from the Decolonising Archives 2021 researchers. The second Decolonising Archives symposium will take place online on 24 March 2022.

For the next 3 years, the Institute’s focus turns to its 2 major funded national projects, Transforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation and Heritage and 20/20. Transforming Collections research activity will kick off in earnest in the new year, and 20/20 will announce the first call for artists in the late spring.

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