gallery director
I worked for many years as an art gallery director in Nottingham. The organisation I directed was called EMACA, and the gallery was called the Art Exchange. Those who know me may ask the question what is a chemistry and biological sciences degree graduate doing directing visual arts? Well I had gotten into it by accident. But once in, i developed a very strong passion for displaying the creativity of African Diasporan people (Black British, African, caribbean, etc.)
inside EMACA gallery
I began working in the gallery as the education and audience development officer and within two years both of my other colleagues left suddenly and I was promoted to the director position. this was funny as i had planned only to stay for two years before moving on to another institution.
The time that I spent there really acted as a lightning conductor that focused my skills and energy, I did many creative things that I had planned to do in my life: organized African History Month events, talks, creative schools, and performances; there were many fulfilling times spent organising exhibitions and events, one of the highlights being Nottingham’s Black Question Time which we filmed in 2004. There were many other highlights interms of exhibitions but these are for a later post. But as most things the gallery and EMACA’s role in it came to an end mainly due to a lack of financial, social, personnel and environmental support and infighting.
There were some odd exhibitions and odd-ball individuals: the artist who made up a photgraphic exhibition of Black and nudes of himself in various poses: the arts programmer at the time tried to tour the show in its unabashed glory only to be told “no cocks, no tour” by many venues, the bipolar arts programmer who tried to seduce a visitor(an ex-lover) in the basement broom cupboard, the exhibition of a deacying model of a dead foetus over four weeks, which was vsisted most by the primary school age girls in the area! So much for shock, taste and Decency.
As an organisation we worked in partnership with other arts organisations, most notably Apna Arts and City Arts on group shows and open submission competitions. The exhibtions would attract a wide range of people from various ethnic backgrounds, contrary to the view that EMACA only catered for Black audiences, the Black audiences were ususally the minority.
There was also the on going “cold war” between the Black cultural self determinists and the Black apologist assimilationists. This manifested in debates, power struggles and ideological concerns. When the two camps eventually split, the assiimilationists gained the upperhand by aligning themselves with the Arts Council and promising them a new premises. Where the old gallery once was, a georgian building is replaced by a forty foot high Mausoleum, a great lifeless Black capstone Lego Brick structure. The new edifice’s structure represents the vision of not the local Nottingham community but the Arts Council of England, and their confederate lackeys on the committee of the premises.
the old art exchange in 2004 - now replaced by a modern building
I learned a lot and developed spiritually and professionally from the event, even though at the end when I left in 2006 I was washed up and burnt out. I recovered to complete a master degree in business, i found my literary voice where I began to write up and publish the story of the gallery, the organisation and its history.
But as most things the gallery and EMACA’s role in it came to an end mainly due to a lack of financial, social, personnel and environmental support and infighting.
Tags: artists, assimilationists, Black cultural nationalists, capital projects, chairmen, curators, education, EMACA, mad people, management committees, self determination, shock art
