Please click on each name (above or below) to go to their creations.

Cliciwch ar bob enw (uchod neu isod) i fynd at eu creadigaethau.

Connectedness, Cwtch, and Cooried in Space

Being Black Oot Here and There is experienced in many ways, so this project is not defined by a single word, image, sound, sense, person, or point in time. Even the term “project” feels far too neat, containing, and constraining to describe all that has been involved in co-creating Black Oot Here and There. Our collaborative work took shape amid times that have been intensely felt, at local, national and global levels, and in very personal and political ways. Such times include the summer of 2024, when there were (more) coordinated and violently racist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic attacks in Britain, as well as responsive anti-racist and anti-fascist action. The rampant nature of the surveillance of Black people continues to be clear, including institutional efforts to silence calls for an end to genocides and calls for the liberation of all oppressed people.

Black Oot Here and There focuses on the experiences and reflections of some Black people in/from Scotland and Wales, while acknowledging the connectedness of experiences and histories elsewhere, such as internationalist solidarities and struggles for freedom around the world. As was apparent from the start of this journey together, there are many places and cultures (including, beyond Scotland and Wales) that are part of who each of us is, and which are woven throughout what was created for our exhibition. With that in mind, the exhibition includes some translations which reflect people’s decision to share in different languages that resonate with them and what they created.

Work in the exhibition relates to dreaming, storytelling, otherworldliness, intimacy, family, love, remembering, holding, releasing, and more. But our approach to this has not meant focusing on a specific theme, question, topic, or provocation. Instead, throughout the process of gathering online and communicating and creating in various ways, we have tried to embrace an openness and the spirit of cwtch, as we coorie into the space for expressing whatever each person or collective was drawn to expressing, and in a way that they wanted to express it.

While each sharing in our exhibition is unique, what maybe brings them all together is a sense of both pause and movement, in the same way that sea waves sometimes feel so still yet also in motion. After all, being oot here and there is made up of many ongoing moments and memories, such as forms of peace and piecing together. Much like waves, we come + go, connecting with and changing the environment imperceptibly, gradually but nonetheless leaving a place changed. Much like waves can be part of the rhythms of vast oceans, Black Oot Here and There is part of wider experiences and histories of Black life in Scotland and Wales.

To read our Connectedness, Cwtch, and Cooried in Space statement in Welsh, click here.

Aurora Trinity Collective

Najma Hussein Abukar

Cass Ezeji

layla-roxanne hill

Kadi Johnson

Krystal S. Lowe

Francesca Sobande

Nathan Somevi

In partnership with Artes Mundi for Black Oot Here and There. This work was supported by funding from an AHRC IAA grant from UKRI, provided through Cardiff University. Related work supported by previous IAA grants includes the graphic novel and animation Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us.

Mewn partneriaeth ag Artes Mundi ar gyfer Black Oot Here and There. Cefnogwyd y gwaith hwn gan gyllid o grant IAA Cyngor Ymchwil y Celfyddydau a’r Dyniaethau (AHRC) gan Ymchwil ac Arloesedd y DU (UKRI), a ddarparwyd drwy Brifysgol Caerdydd. Mae gwaith cysylltiedig a gefnogwyd gan grantiau IAA blaenorol yn cynnwys y nofel graffig a'r animeiddiad Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us.