Changemakers 2023

In October 2022, GRAFT worked with a group of young people to consider Lancaster’s historic connections to the transatlantic slave trade and learn about racial inequality in the arts. We ran a series of workshops at Lancaster Maritime Museum and went on a walking tour of the city with Lancaster Black History Group.

As you can learn by visiting the Museum, Lancaster was once the 4th largest port involved in the trade of enslaved people. Many of the buildings in the city were built from money earned through trading human lives. However, there are few works in the Maritime Museum - or elsewhere in the city - by Black artists or depicting Black people.

The result of this project is “Voices”, an exhibition of 3 Black artists from across the UK. Exhibiting artists - Wesley George, Ivy Kalungi and Akinsola Lawanson - were selected by the young curators. Their works are installed alongside the collection at the Maritime Museum, celebrating the talents of these young Black artists and activating curatorship as a tool against racism.

This project was made possible thanks to funding from Arts Council England. We are immensely grateful to Lancaster Maritime Museum and Lancaster City Council for hosting our workshops and the exhibition; to Lancashire Youth Challenge for supporting us to reach young people; and to Lancaster Black History Group for sharing their knowledge so generously.

You can find out more about our previous version of Changemakers, delivered in 2020, by visiting the project page here.

Wesley George (b. 2000) of Vincentian and English heritage lives and works in London. As a self-taught British artist, George is known for his naturalistic portraits of Black sitters against vibrant block-coloured backgrounds. Taking his friends from London as his primary subjects, and presenting them in a candid and uplifting manner, George seeks to shed light on the overlooked narratives of Black subjects throughout history and society. George emphasises the importance of cultural heritage and the need for unification of society through his choice of subjects and his eye-catching colour palette. Another crucial feature throughout his portraiture is the inclusion of elements from urban culture, such as popular street wear and symbolism. By combining these elements with his subjects of today, George creates a unique visual syntax which presents complex narratives on an engaging and relatable level. In turn, George's work prompts the viewer to reflect on the lives and stories of the people around them.

Ivy Kalungi is a Ugandan-born artist. Kalungi’s works frequently employ the theme of collective memory, inspired by culture and tradition. Ivy produces works that explore a variety of media, which break the boundaries between their distinctive materiality and characteristic. The work commonly circles the idea of fragmented narratives exploring the past and present, inspired by shared memories derives from her Ugandan and Irish cultural traditions. Ivy Kalungi is interested in people who exist in diaspora, carrying different heritages and histories simultaneously.

Akinsola Lawanson is a British-Nigerian multi-disciplinary artist based in London. Through different mediums such as moving image, video game engines and motorised sculptures; their practice examines a variety of themes including relational systems, digital technologies and process philosophy. Akinsola recently graduated from Goldsmiths University in 2022 and organised a group exhibition Schemes and Schema in April 2022 at Hartslane. He recently exhibited at South Kiosk and has been selected as one of Bloomberg’s New Contemporaries 2022.