14/10/2026
Meet Phoebe Beckett Chingono, our new Project & Community Programme Administrator for Living Legacies: Collaboration, Community and Radicality! 💖
She supports the research and delivery, as well as some of the logistical coordination of the project, ranging from workshops, exhibitions, events and public programming. She says: "This means I get to encounter lots of different sides of iniva as an organisation, from development and curatorial research to programming and community engagement, as well as digital projects around iniva's Archive and website."
Phoebe picked three staff recommendations, from both the Stuart Hall Library and iniva's Archive:
💿 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐲 (𝐂𝐃-𝐑𝐎𝐌) (𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐚'𝐬 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐯𝐞)
I recently programmed Autoicon as part of an event at Ormside exploring Black technocultural production in the 90s. I’m interested in how Rodney works with both the body politic and his own physical body, using his body's material, his voice, X-rays, hair, in digital form. I also love how the web work was distributed on CD-ROM, and encountering that now-obsolete format: a technology of the future, now a relic.
📘 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞: 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐊𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐚 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐫 [𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐌𝐄𝐑]
I recently read Welcome to the Jungle while writing a piece about the transatlantic circulation of Black feminist film culture in the 80s.
In it is a wonderful anecdote from a conference in 1982: Sonia Boyce argues for proportional representation “full stop”. Trevor Mathison stands up in support of her and is met with a racist response from a white woman in the audience. I was excited to find this tiny moment on the record; that he was there, she was there, and this small and important act of solidarity survives in her recollection.
📔 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐀 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐁𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧, 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐨-𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐀𝐫𝐭, 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞 𝐊𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐝, 𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐚 [𝟒𝟏𝟎.𝟏𝟏𝟏 𝐈𝐍𝐈 𝐑𝐄𝐂]
I came to Recordings independently while looking through the library and found it useful for the historiographical function it serves: iniva actively compiling and collating artists and exhibitions it felt were important to record at the time, and in doing so creating genealogies between artists connected to iniva.
I also noted the way the publication uses the word Black with a lowercase “b” to describe people of African, Afro-Caribbean, Southeast Asian and Asian descent.” I’d been thinking recently about how I see much less representation of East Asian artists in histories of political Blackness in Britain, so I found it interesting to see that broader use of the term made explicit in a publication as late as 1996.
Funnily enough, the book reappeared a couple of weeks later, as Sepake had been looking at it in her curatorial research. It’s been useful for thinking about how we approach chronologies in our own research, which will feed into an upcoming exhibition in 2027.
Living Legacies is a transformative four-year project rooted in the legacies of Global Majority artistic practice. It activates iniva’s unique visual arts archive centred on radical global art histories and reconnects it with contemporary communities in Westminster, Lambeth and Southwark through co-created exhibitions, events, podcasts and digital resources. The project foregrounds identity, belonging and cultural memory through intergenerational partnerships with young people (16–25) and older adults (65+), artists, educators and grassroots organisations.
Living Legacies is supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
It's wonderful to have you here, Phoebe!😍
