Black British Artists and Political Activism: Abstraction and Anti-colonialism

Elizabeth Robles is a researcher and lecturer in contemporary art in the History of Art Department at the University of Bristol. She is particularly interested in the formation of ideas around ‘black art’ across the twentieth century and is currently a British Academy postdoctoral fellow working on a project entitled Making Waves: Black Artists & ‘Black Art’ in Britain from 1962–1982. Most recently she co-edited the exhibition publication The Place is Here: The Work of Black Artists in 1980s Britain (Sternberg, 2019) alongside curator Nick Aikens. She also co-leads the British Art Network Black British Artists Research Group.

Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski is an archivist and mixed media artist currently pursuing a PhD at Chelsea College of Arts (UAL / Tate Britain). Her doctoral research places much-needed critical attention on Jamaican-born sculptor Ronald Moody. She holds an MA in Archives and Record Management, International (UCL). She is a member of the Afrofeminist Transatlantic Collaboration, which maps and archives the cultural resistance of Black feminist artists in the UK and the Twins Cities, and is the archivist for the Rita Keegan Archive Project. Ego is also a founding member of the Remembering Olive (Morris) Collective 2.0. and a member of Transmission – a core group of five individuals who share thoughts and ideas on the current heritage landscape. Transmission continues to develop frameworks for interrogating what it means to be a Black archive, advocate, and/or archivist in the 21st century with a view to sharing skills and building capacity with the heritage and memory work sector. She is a board member for YO MAMA! Housing Cooperative, founded by Amoke Kubat, is a creative and healing-focused initiative. She also holds a position on the advisory board for Not/Nowhere, a UK artist workers’ cooperative.