Decolonising memory: Digital bodies in movement

Decolonising Memory: Digital Bodies in Movement is a UKRI Citizen Science funded project researching Bristol’s history, memory and legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans through dance, movement, and digital creativity. The project held open workshops from November 2021 to May 2022, bringing together members of the public as ‘citizen scientists’ to research and explore this history and its memory together in relation to the cityscape, identifying key ‘sites of memory’ to explore and counter. The research centralised dance and movement as a key method of practice-based and participatory inquiry which centralised Afrikan Diaspora heritage and culture. The project led to the development of a new memorial folk dance for the city which was created through exercises in the workshops and has been performed over the summer at key moments and events including the 50th anniversary of the Bristol Harbour Festival. The final phase of the project is an augmented reality mobile phone app which, as a piece of digital art, builds on material developed within and inspired by the participatory workshops and showcases movements from the dance at different points in Bristol’s landscape.

In this talk, the project team (Cleo Lake, Kwesi Johnson and Jessica Moody) will present the project’s aims and objectives and share and reflect on their findings and experiences so far.

About the speakers

Cleo Lake is an artist, activist and dance practitioner and is the Community Co-ordinator for The World Re-Imagined project in Bristol. Cleo was the former Green Party Lord Mayor of Bristol (2018-2019), has served as local councillor for Cotham (2016-2021) and has twenty years experiences in the arts and cultural sector. She has been Chair of St Paul’s Carnival, Arts and Events Manager for Stapleton Road, radio produced and presenter for Ujima radio and a dance facilitator and writer in residence for the Arnolfini Art Gallery.

Kwesi Johnson is a movement specialist and has been the Creative Director of The Cultural Assembly for the last 20 years. He has also been the Artistic Director/choreographer of NPO, Kompany Malakhi and is a pioneer of the now worldwide performance genre, Hip Hop Theatre. His current work lies at the intersection of digital, the creative arts & technology and repurposing commercial real estate into creative hubs making online/offline performance and community building work where access is democratised.

Jessica Moody is Senior Lecturer in Public History at the University of Bristol. She has previously worked for the universities of Portsmouth and York, and for National Museums Liverpool. Her current research interests include creative and co-produced forms of memorialisation, and plants as public history. Her first monograph The Persistence of Memory: Remembering slavery in Liverpool, ‘slaving capital of the world’ looked at the city of Liverpool’s long public memory of transatlantic enslavement and is available in print and open access from Liverpool University Press.

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