Black History Month Events in London 2023

Explore the impact Caribbean people have made on transportation in London at London Transport Museum. 'Legacies: London Transport's Caribbean Workforce' features stories from Caribbean people who worked for what is now Transport for London, many of whom came to London in the postwar years in search of a better life. The exhibit highlights the triumps and challenges they experienced, and the major influence that London’s Caribbean communities have had on the city’s culture, particularly highlighting events like Notting Hill Carnival and recent Tube station art campaigns. Check the London Transport Museum website for further details of the exhibition and related events. 

Plenty of blockbuster fashion shows have graced London’s most iconic museums and galleries, but plenty of stories remain untold, particularly when it comes to Black British fashion. This new major exhibition at Somerset House aims to correct this. Spanning from the 1970s to the present day and curated by Black Orientated Legacy Development Agency (BOLD) will show what impact Black creativity has has on British fashion and how Black creativity and style has evolved across the decades. Look out for work from the likes of Joe Casely-Hayford OBE, Chris Ofili, Maud Sulter, Rotimi Fans-Kayode, Marc Hare and Jennie Baptiste.  

Little Mix member Leigh-Anne Pinnock, bestselling writer Candice Brathwaite, gal-dem founder Liv Little, Channel 4 presenter Eric Collins and ‘Strictly’ champ Oti Mabuse are all on the line-up for this two-day festival aiming to banish barriers to entry into the publishing industry. The jam-packed programme features all manner talks, panel discussions and workshops that will help aspiring authors to navigate everything from securing an agent to writing engaging dialogue, plus readings from bestselling authors, a marketplace where you can stock up on new reads, live music and a grand finale event featuring poetry and spoken word.

You should be deeply suspicious of anyone who thinks they can neatly sum up a whole continent’s artistic output. Because even if you focus on just one artform – like photography, in the case of the Tate’s latest exhibition – you’ve given yourself a pretty impossible task.

But ‘A World in Common’ gives it a valiant, vibrant go anyway. It starts with George Osodi’s gorgeous, lavish portraits of Nigerian kings and queens; regal figures who survived as cultural custodians despite Britain tearing their lands apart, sat on ornate thrones in luxurious robes.

It sets the tone for the show, because at its best this exhibition acts as a portrait of a continent bearing the indelible scars of colonial wounds. Colonialism and its impact is ever-present in the works on display. In shadowy, silently violent photographs, Em’kal Eyongakpa documents his journey through sacred lands that were once a place of anti-colonial Cameroonian resistance; Sammy Baloji juxtaposes colonial-era portraits with images of modern mines to show that exploitation of Africa's land and people never really stopped. Ndidi Dike’s installation of hundreds of binders filled with reams of information shows how data was used to manipulate power. There are so many scars here. 

The future might be bright, and it might be gloomy, it’s all still being written

But it would be wrong to assume that all African photography is a confrontation with colonialism; it does a disservice to the countless artists from the continent who have had other things to explore. To that end, Sabelo Mlangeni’s portraits of gay life in South Africa are intimate and joyful, Lebohang Kganye imposes her own ghostly spectre on pictures of her mother, creating tender images of grief, and Hassan Hajjaj’s images of a female Moroccan motorcycle gang are brilliantly colourful and confrontational.

Africa is also dealing with a lot more than just colonialism. It’s growing, and fast. Lagos and Kinshasa are megacities, there’s money to be made, futures to be shaped, but all under the heavy shadow of climate change. Landfills, pollution and water scarcity fill the works of Aida Muluneh and Fabrice Monteiro, while Andrew Esiebo and Kiripi Katembo document the remorseless drive for change in African cities. The future might be bright, and it might be gloomy, it’s all still being written.

But by combining documentary and fine art photography, by whacking in installation and film, by looking at Africa and its diaspora, the show overreaches. As a survey of Africa’s photography, it just doesn’t really work. But as a document of art as a form of resistance, resilience, rebellion, and ongoing survival, it’s brilliant