Kern, Amba Sayal-Bennett (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at SEEDLINGS, Somerset House Studios)

Dr. Sarah Longair unseats European powers' efforts to control the East African coast, through a Kiti Cha Enzi, or Swahili Chair of Power, produced in the 19th century. Intricately decorated with an ivory inlay, a large, wooden throne sits proudly - not in its place of production of Witu, Kenya, but the stores of the British Museum. Kiti cha enzi, or seats of power, were used as thrones by Swahili rulers from the 18th century. Their distinctive form incorporates myriad cultural influences, highlighting the vibrant pre-colonial trading history of the Swahili community, while their symbolic use speaks to shifting patterns of power on the African coast. Produced as Germany and Britain competed for colonial control on the East African coast, this chair is a material symbol of how a small Swahili community resisted European expansion. Its seizure from the Swahili Sultan Fumo Bakari, and subsequent relocation by Admiral Fremantle to the National Maritime Museum, and later British Museum, speaks to our current interests in the colonial origins of museum objects. But it also reveals the complex rivalries between Western imperial pofwers, and how East African leaders exercised their own agency by playing them against each other. PRESENTER: Dr. Sarah Longair, Senior Lecturer in the History of Empire at the University of Lincoln. ART: Kiti Cha Enzi (Swahili Chair of Power), East Africa (19th Century). IMAGE: 'Sketch of Kiti Cha Enzi of the Sultan of Witu, British Museum Af1992,05.1. Drawing: S Longair'. SOUNDS: Radi Cultural Group. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

5 Tammi 202315min

Dr. Chris Spring tears up stereotypes of African textiles, through Araminta de Clermont's 2010 photograph, Thabo, Thabiso and Blackx. Three young men wait at a bus stop near Cape Town in South Africa, clad in blankets of brilliant blue and rose red. Historically, these 'African' woven textiles were originally manufactured by Europeans during the colonial period. Dutch imperial traders, who first entered the Indian Ocean trade in the mid-seventeenth century, only added to the existing vigorous trade in textiles which had been carried out by Indian, Arab, and Chinese traders for many centuries before the arrival of Europeans. From indigo resist-dyed blauwdruk, to Swahili kanga, and South African shweshwe, these ‘authentic’ products are truly the hybrid product of places and peoples working across and within empires - from factories in Manchester, to migrant merchants from Kutch, and businesses within the Japanese Empire. This confident photograph speaks to how patterns and designs had always been dictated by African taste, aesthetics, and patronage, and utilised by women to communicate across gendered and religious social boundaries. Now representative of diverse African identities and indigeneity, these fabrics unsettle ideas of what an 'African' textile should look like, revealing innovation and modernity - all the way to the Marvel film, Black Panther. PRESENTER: Dr. Chris Spring, artist, writer and former curator in the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum He was the curator of Social Fabric: African Textiles Today, at the British Museum and William Morris Gallery. ART: Thabo, Thabiso and Blackx, Araminta de Clermont (2010). IMAGE: 'Thabo, Thabiso and Blackx'. SOUNDS: Chad Crouch. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

22 Joulu 202222min

We're back offline, and in the artist's bedroom at Van Gogh House in London, as Vaishnavi Mohan pins down Harold Offeh's sound installation, We Came Here, an imagined conversation on migration between Vincent Van Gogh and the Jamaican-born, Brixton-based community leader, Olive Morris. In 1873, the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh arrived in Stockwell in South London. Almost a century later, Olive Morris, a Jamaican-born community leader, was actively campaigning for feminist, Black, and squatters' rights in nearby Brixton. Researching the lives of these two 20 year olds, Harold Offeh, Van Gogh House's then artist-in-residence, became intrigued by the idea of the artist as a ‘migrant’ in London. His sound installation, We Came Here, is an cross-generational conversation between artist and activist, exploring their shared and common experiences of London, housing rights and social justice, and the development of their individual sociopolitical awarenesses. Community Engagement Guide Vaishnavi Mohan shares narratives of young migrants arriving in London today, delving into questions of access and decolonisation of the museum space. We Came Here runs at Van Gogh House London until 18 December 2022. PRESENTER: Vaishnavi Mohan, Community Engagement Guide at Van Gogh House, and science communicator. ART: We Came Here, Harold Offeh, with voice actors Abel Enkelaar and Nkara Stephenson (2022). IMAGE: 'Van Gogh's Bedroom.' SOUNDS: Extract from We Came Here, Harold Offeh. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

8 Joulu 202218min

Deborah Lee-Talbot exposes the political agency of Indigenous women in British New Guinea, through a photograph of the Papuan Geua, taken in the 1880s. In her European 'Mother Hubbard' dress, and necklace made of local shells, Geua's status as a powerful, 'Big Woman' of Papua New Guinea is without question. A politically motivated Indigenous intermediary, she collaborated with the British missionaries and explorers that visited Port Moresby during the late nineteenth century, when the island was known as British New Guinea in the British Empire. Geua' prominence is evidenced by her repeated presence throughout the London Missionary Society's (LMS) archives, photographed by the likes of George Lawes. Her images serve in part as mission propaganda for European audiences, revealing what it was like for religious missionaries in the tropical Pacific region. Yet rereading Geua’s photograph from her perspective challenges the idea of Papuans' evolution as Christians, exposing Geua’s own agency as an Indigenous woman, and her critical role in bridging two distinctive cultures - as well as the unique role colonial photographs play today. PRESENTER: Deborah Lee-Talbot, doctoral candidate in Australian-Pacific and archival history at Deakin University, Australia. ART: Indigenous Intermediary Geua in ‘Photographs Mainly of Port Moresby’, George Lawes, (1880s). IMAGE: 'Geua'. SOUNDS: Blue Dot Sessions. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

24 Marras 202217min

Dr. Helen Paul bursts the South Sea Bubble, tracing the triangular trade of slavery between London and Britain's colonies in South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, via John Cleveley's 18th century painting, The Luxborough Galley on Fire. Sailing into the dark green waters of the mid-Atlantic Ocean, the Luxborough Galley is in imperilled. Consumed by flames, with no land in sight, its white passengers frantically firefight - to no avail. Commissioned by one of the ship's few survivors for display in Greenwich, John Cleveley's six oil paintings recast the story as one of British heroism - erasing the history of the South Sea Company's colonial profiteering, catastrophic South Sea Bubble of 1720, and scapegoating its enslaved Black passengers for carelessly causing the blaze. Still housed in the National Maritime Museum, on the southern bank of the River Thames, John Cleveley’s rendering exposes London's vast investment into the international slave trade, linking British colonies across the world. By focussing on cannibalism, it unintentionally commemorates the inhumanity, lack of civislisation, and crimes against humanity committed by its white colonial benefactors. PRESENTER: Dr Helen Paul, lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton, and Honorary Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at UCL. ART: The Luxborough Galley on Fire, 25 June 1727, John Cleveley the Elder (c. 18th Century). IMAGE: 'The 'Luxborough Galley' on fire, 25 June 1727'. SOUNDS: One Man Book. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

10 Marras 202216min

James Marriott traces the flows of Britain's global oil empire in the 20th century, from a village in Nigeria to The Beatles' 1965 vinyl, Drive My Car. Penned by Paul McCartney and John Lennon in 1965, ‘Drive my Car’ transported The Beatles on their way to international success. It is the soundtrack of the British empire of the 1960s, characterised by pop culture domination and high-powered men in business suits, rather than top hats and general's uniforms. This ‘late empire’ was built on petrol, plastics, airplanes and vinyl records - which permeated British homes and everyday lives. Tracing the crude oil connections between Ogoni in Nigeria to refineries in Wales, and the colonial heritage of businesses like Shell-BP, James Marriott exposes the pipeline politics underlying Britain’s global empire of oil. PRESENTER: James Marriott, writer and activist at Platform. He is the co-author of Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation with Terry Macalister, published by Pluto Press in 2021. He is executive producer of THE OIL MACHINE (2022), a documentary film screening across the UK in November 2022. ART: Vinyl Record of Drive My Car, The Beatles (1965). IMAGE: 'Women at the EMI factory packing the Rubber Soul album'. SOUNDS: Atlas Sound. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

27 Loka 202217min

We're back offline, and into the deep black exhibition space of Bath's Holburne Museum, where artist Nalini Malani coats fresh layers upon classical paintings from the National Gallery in her new installation, My Reality is Different. Artist Nalini Malani disrupts Western linear perspectives – in art, and in history. In My Reality is Different, the viewer is engulfed within a dark cavern, a panoramic 40 metres of wall space, shot with nine overlapping video projections all playing in a continuous loop. With tens of iPad-drawn animations. she adds layers to classical paintings from the National Gallery and the Holburne Museum in Bath. Born in 1946 in Karachi, British India, and now practicing in Mumbai, Malani has always radically questioned conventions of painting and drawing. She talks about reworking well-known works of art from alternative, and critical, perspectives, highlighting histories of the subaltern, women, and the colonial and imperial sources of wealth behind contemporary art collections. Nalini Malani: My Reality is Different runs at the Holburne Museum in Bath until 8 January 2023, and then the National Gallery in London from 2 March to 11 June 2023. You can read my review of My Reality is Different in gowithYamo: gowithyamo.com/blog/nalini-malani-my-reality-is-different-review. For more, listen to the curator ⁠Priyesh Mistry⁠ on EMPIRE LINES: pod.link/1533637675/episode/f62cca1703b42347ce0ade0129cedd9b PRESENTER: Nalini Malini, Mumbai-based artist. In 2020, she became the first-ever artist to receive the National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship. ART: My Reality is Different, Nalini Malani (2022). IMAGE: 'Nalini Malani in front of Caravaggio’s 'The Supper at Emmaus' (1601) at the National Gallery'. SOUNDS: Extract from My Reality is Different, Nalini Malani. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936  Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

20 Loka 20229min

Dr. Michele Lamprakos reconstructs the imperial flows of Islamic and Byzantine architecture from 8th century Spain, through the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, or the Mezquita. A strange, hybrid building dominates the southern Spanish city of Córdoba. Part mosque, part cathedral, the Mezquita was first constructed by the early Islamic Umayyad dynasty - then seized, 'purified,' and consecrated as a Christian church in the 13th century. This infamous Christianised mosque, complete with crucero, epitomised the imperial 'Christian universe' of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Habsburg dynasty's victory over Islam. Still, much of the Islamic fabric was politically preserved – and even reconstructed - in testament to Spain's long history of religious rivalry and reconciliation. Tracing these unending cycles of Christianisation and re-Islamification reveals Spain's imperial ambitions in northern Africa, and how the Mezquita remained a political tool through the 20th century General Franco dictatorship to today. PRESENTER: Dr. Michele Lamprakos, Associate Professor of Architectural and Urban History at the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, University of Maryland-College Park. ART: The Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba (8th Century). IMAGE: ‘Mezquita, Cornelia Steffens'. SOUNDS: Gnawledge. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

13 Loka 202212min