Alberta Whittle talks to Ben Luke about her influences in art, books, music and other media and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Over the last few years, Whittle has emerged as one of the most striking new voices in contemporary British art, especially with her collaborative film installations focusing on battling anti-blackness. Born in 1980 in Bridgetown on the Caribbean island of Barbados, Whittle moved to Birmingham in the UK as a teenager before studying at the Glasgow School of Art—she still lives in Glasgow today but spends some of her time in Barbados. This relationship between her native Caribbean and her Scottish hometown have informed her work from the start, in terms of exploring her own identity and its connection with the histories of colonialism, slavery and systemic racism. Whittle's acclaimed films are a collage of disparate moving images, including found archival material, footage shot on an iPhone and extraordinary performances filmed in beautiful high definition, among other things. In this conversation, she explains her instinct to collaborate with performers, artists and writers, reflects on her love of the art of Frida Kahlo and Hilma af Klint, among many others, and discusses the music she adores, by artists as diverse as Dancehall queen Patra and the late opera singer Jessye Norman. Plus, she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by ARTIKA.
Links for this episode
Alberta Whittle
Shows:
Alberta Whittle: Reset at Jupiter Artland
business as usual: hostile environment at Glasgow Sculpture Studios
Life Support at Glasgow Women’s Library
Sonia Boyce’s exhibition In the Castle of My Skin at MIMA, Middlesborough
British Art Show 9
Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now at Tate Britain
Sex Ecologies at Kunsthal Trondheim
Scotland + Venice
Discussed in the interview:
The Guardian newspaper’s reporting on the Windrush scandal
Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern, 2005—room guide
Louise Bourgeois at The Easton Foundation
Chris Ofili at David Zwirner
Denzil Forrester at Stephen Friedman Gallery
Hilma af Klint Foundation
Tramway, Glasgow
Fruitmarket, Edinburgh
Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)
Transmission, Glasgow
Maryhill Integration Network
Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg
Cry Freedom on Amazon Prime
Kamau Brathwaite at the Poetry Foundation
Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
Dionne Brand at Penguin Random House
Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work
Jessye Norman’s Spirituals on Spotify and her Spotify page
Tumi Mogorosi’s Project ELO on Spotify and his Spotify page
Patra’s Spotify page
Alberta Whittle’s blog about her Fresh Milk residency in Barbados, including the fete posters
Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln perform Tears For Johannesburg & Triptych (Prayer, Protest)
Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column at the World Monuments Fund
Alberta Whittle’s "accomplices":
Sekai Machache
Mele Broomes
Matthew Arthur Williams
Christian Noelle Charles
Ama Josephine Budge
Yves B Golden
Anushka Naanayakkara
Sabrina Henry
Richy Carey
Basharat Khan
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