Impact case study database

IBAR is a unique cultural space bringing communities, artists and academics together

IBAR is an interdisciplinary arts and culture research hub at UCLAN. It has become a rich cultural space for dialogue and debate between academics, artists, writers, musicians, curators and community groups brought together over a series of events and partnerships. IBAR’s focus is on the study of the Black Atlantic in Northern Britain and beyond. In contradistinction to most other institutes in the field, IBAR foregrounds cultural concerns, bringing artists, practitioners and community groups into dialogue with academics. IBAR graduate and now Director of the Chisenhale Gallery, London, Dr. Zoe Whitley has described how the Institute is “alive with discursive thought and dynamic action, where artists are not only the subject but the core of proceedings” making for “a hybrid community bridging art and the academy.”[A]

Creating new audiences amongst communities for the hidden histories of slavery

Rice’s research on local histories of the slave trade and Abolition and their global implications has contributed to a wider public understanding and to community engagement and empowerment. Professor Madge Dresser & Dr. Mary Wills, research auditors for Historic England, have noted Rice’s “research into the local histories of slavery and abolition is hugely influential, particularly regarding the history of Lancaster as a former slave trading port, and the ways in which the city and its residents address this complex and often hidden part of its past”. [B] These new biographies and the discovery of new links between local spaces and the transatlantic slave trade has proved important to local community groups through events and initiatives and to wider audiences through creative works and broadcast media. As Belfast community activist Marsha Deans said of his research, Rice “demonstrate(s) in new and innovative ways … how slavery still impacts people of the African diaspora and this will widen the thinking and the dialogue around this sensitive subject.” [C1]

Rice has developed innovative slave-site tours around Lancaster that contribute to the process of commemoration and memorialization, stimulate cultural tourism and enhance the public understanding of complex historical legacies. His tours for local community groups and international visitors in 2016 and 2017 included 10 members from the Caribbean community brought together by Preston Black History Group (PBHG) who were introduced to new perspectives on local black history. PBHG have been key partners of IBAR from its inception. Their Chair, Clinton Smith describes how “PBHG has benefitted greatly from the contacts and connections it has gained through IBAR … locally, regionally, nationally and internationally” [C2], enabling community education and empowerment. IBAR was a key partner with PBHG for their 2019 celebration of Windrush Day that received GBP5,436 funding from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Rice and IBAR colleagues worked with PBHG to produce a series of broadcasts with BBC Radio Lancashire, which addressed aspects of Black British history in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

Following his appearance in January 2018 on BBC4’s A Stitch in Time (486,000 viewers) to explain the links between cotton and slavery, Rice led tours as part of Fashion Revolution Week in April 2018 and 2019. These were adapted to include information on the key role cotton played in the development of Lancaster in the early nineteenth century and discussions of the Cotton Famine and global labour exploitation then and now. These events were developed in collaboration with Sewing Café Lancaster, a campaigning refugee and asylum- seeker support organisation. Rice took part in a panel discussion at Lancaster Quaker Meeting House with local, national and international activists and fashion designers during fashion revolution week in 2018 & 2019. Sewing Café Lancaster members attending IBAR’s Women’s Spring conference in June 2018, where they were able to share their activist work using banners with feminist academics from over 20 countries. [C3]

In 2019 Rice was invited by the Friends of the Judges Lodgings Museum, Lancaster, to lead a slave-site tour for their trustees and volunteers ensuring that the story of slavery is foregrounded at the museum. In 2020 Rice updated the print version of the Lancaster Slave Trade, Abolition and Fair-Trade Trail to include more details on Black British agency. Handed out at the Tourist Information Centre and city museums, this resource now narrates a more dynamic, black-centred history. It is accompanied by film clips on the Lancaster Maritime Museum Facebook page by BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Alison Cahn. In May 2020 Rice’s research contributed to the formation of the campaigning Lancaster Black History Group (LBHG). LBHG has consulted with Lancaster City Council and museums about reparative work addressing the legacy of slavery for the City and its institutions and Rice gave a keynote presentation at the Discovering our Local Heritage Discussion event, hosted by Lancaster City Council. Furthermore, teachers from LBHG have used Rice’s trail to develop a version specifically for pre-school and early years children and have publicised this through their facebook page [D]. Rice worked with the Parish Council and residents of Sunderland Point near Lancaster on the contextualization of Sambo’s Grave, a nationally important slave burial site and place of memorialization. Rice was consulted about new signage at Sunderland Point and provided the underpinning research for the framing of Manchester writer Suandi’s reading of her poem about Sambo’s Grave for Channel 4’s November 2018 Great Canal Journeys (1,800,000 viewers). Rice was interviewed on the programme’s Lancaster section, using his research to foreground the way slave-trader money was crucial to investment in canals, a perspective that was fully developed in the programme only because of the use of Rice’s research expertise and ability “to share the complex history in such an easy and engaging way.”[E1] Similarly, in the BBC series Villages by the Sea: Sunderland Point (241,000 viewers), “the film’s emphasis on telling the story of slavery in the area was materially affected by Rice’s contribution” as consultant and talking head.”[E2] Rice was a crucial advisor to and broadcaster on the BBC Radio 4 series Britain’s Black Past (approximately. 880,000 listeners) whose producer Elizabeth Burke indicated she “could not have made the series without him.” [E3]

Inspiring, developing and collaborating with artists, musicians and writers

Rice’s research has influenced cultural production and led to collaborations with artists across many fields, including those developing work based explicitly on his research. Winner of the Bloomsbury Festival 2019 Art Prize, artist Louis Bennett described how, “going on your slave trail walk in 2018, learning from you that day, and later finding out more through more reading and research on the topics and interests you ignited, has deeply affected my artistic practice”.[C4] The musician Steve Lewis and his band Deep Cabaret used [2] to develop their elegiac track ‘Samboo’ which “became the band’s signature tune … and was a significant factor in the band being accepted for Jazz North’s Northern Line project”. This song features on the new 2020 album with Rice’s research name-checked. Rice led a Lantern Slave-Site Walk in March 2018 organised by the Friends of Sunderland Point that culminated in a concert by the band. Linking Rice’s research directly to the song, Lewis attests “(t)hose who went to both (walk and concert) commented on how much the walk added to the appreciation of the music.” [F]

St. Kitts born Black-British writer Caryl Phillips has been a longstanding collaborator with IBAR. Rice took part in a Q&A event with Phillips at the Bronte Parsonage Museum as part of the conference Lost Children: The Black Atlantic and Northern Britain, jointly organized by IBAR. They discussed the Black presence in Northern Britain historically and in the context of Phillips’ novel The Lost Child, a prequel to Wuthering Heights. The young Black British artist Jade Montserrat showcased her work ‘Clay’ at the conference, talking about the challenges of being a black artist in a region where the black presence is elided, describing how IBAR “prompted the making of new work and created a space for dialogue and research”[G] and providing her with the critical audiences that have been crucial to Montserrat’s development as an artist. In April 2019, IBAR featured the bestselling young writer Reni Eddo-Lodge (the first black British writer to top the bestselling non-fiction list), organising a sold-out event (80 people) where she was in dialogue with Montserrat, enabling a dynamic conversation between two young Black-British cultural thinkers for a diverse public audience.

IBAR has partnered with Liverpool Hope University to run the 2015 Collegium for African Atlantic Research Conference in Liverpool, where IBAR sponsored an event at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, that included a presentation about African-Atlantic Arts by the gallery director Bryan Briggs and the renowned Black-British artist, Keith Piper (300+ participants). This brought together international scholars and local community workers and activists showcasing African-Atlantic research in the visual arts. Subsequently, Bluecoat invited Rice to be on their committee to commemorate their 300^th anniversary in 2017 and to co-organise their Bluecoat 300: Charity, Philanthropy and the Black Atlantic conference where Rice’s research informed the themes of the event and was attended by diverse audiences. [C5]

Rice has played a major role in interpreting and contextualizing the work of the 2017 Turner Prize winning artist, Lubaina Himid to a diverse range of audiences. As a result of his research on Himid,[6] Rice was invited to deliver the keynote bi-lingual public lecture at the opening of Himid’s exhibition of her work Inside the Invisible at Muzeum Mazowieckie, Plock, Poland in October 2017 to over 100 school students, gallery staff and members of the public. He has chaired a community Q&A event to showcase Himid’s career at the Lancaster Gregson Community Centre in October 2018 (sold out 110 attendees). In January 2020, together with Himid, Rice organised a two-day conference Creative Conversations: Black Women Artists Making and Doing which investigated the links between African diasporan women’s literary and artistic cultures. It culminated in a public event and an ‘in conversation’ between Himid and the Scottish Makar, Jackie Kay (175+ attended). The event brought together black women artists (including Marlene Smith and Ingrid Pollard) with academics and curators (80 participants). Gallery director Zoe Whitley said it succeeded in “bringing together a multi-generational cross-section of visual artists, poets, filmmakers, musicians and writers from across the UK (as) a vital step in de-centring notions of a London-based British art world” [A]. Althea Greenan from the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths College praised an “outstanding event” highlighting “the spirit of affirmation that the event achieved as successful knowledge-sharing experience.”[H] In 2020, Rice curated and wrote the catalogue for Lubaina Himid’s Memorial to Zong exhibition at Lancaster Maritime Museum. Rice was a key member of the local community action group, led by Councillor Caroline Jackson, that used the legacy of the notorious slave-ship the Zong to debate Lancaster’s slave history. Jackson described how Rice’s “detailed knowledge of the subject and of Lancaster was an immense asset in devising suitable and unusual ways into raising awareness of slave connections.” [I]

Transforming curatorial and commemorative practice locally and nationally

Rice’s concept of guerrilla memorialisation [2] has been extensively adopted and has enabled museum and heritage professionals to develop and adapt their practice to changing cultural values. In October 2015 this led to an invitation to give a keynote at the Nordic Connections to Colonialism and Slavery Project symposium held at Aarhus University & the National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen. This brought together academics and museum professionals from Norway, Denmark and Sweden to learn strategic lessons from the commemorative activities associated with the 2007 British bicentenary of the abolition of slavery, helping them prepare for similar commemorative events. Hella Stenum describes how Rice made “valuable interventions” that helped the framing of future policy.[J] In October 2017 as part of the Portico Library, Manchester, exhibition Bittersweet: Legacies of Slavery and Abolition in Manchester, Rice gave a public illustrated talk about guerrilla memorialisation (audience 20) that was also featured in the Mancunian magazine. Museum curator Nigel Pocock followed techniques learnt in the book in displays he developed for an exhibition about black presence in Wiltshire during September 2018, describing how Rice’s research “has been an excellent catalyst to my own work in helping to establish educational and arts projects within the African-Caribbean, historical research, and community history fraternities” and “for creative thinking about new possibilities for art in memorials, museums, schools and colleges, as well as other contexts.” [K] Pocock discussed the seminal nature of Rice’s research for curators in the bilingual newspaper PRISMA in July 2018 and he invited Rice to present his “pioneering and inspiring” work in Wiltshire in September 2019 as part of National Heritage Day.

In November 2019, Rice was a keynote speaker at the Links and Legacy Project in Belfast, facilitated by the African & Caribbean Support Organisation Northern Ireland. His discussion of slave memorials moved the committee to start the process of commemorating a “slave buried in Belfast. ”[C1 ] In March 2019, Rice was invited to share his finding as a plenary speaker with multicultural artists from nine different projects across the USA at the Art, Activism and Imagination: Building a Transformative Arts Network conference at University of California, Santa Barbara in March 2019. In November 2019 Rice was invited to speak on guerrilla memorialisation at the 1619 Collective Memories Symposium at the Sonja Haynes Stone Centre for Black Culture and History, University of North Carolina, where, “he helped to broaden our understanding of evolving practices of remembrance and memorialization” to an audience that included “public historians from local governments, lay community members and local government policymakers.”[L]