MAIA has been collaborating and conspiring with artist - curator - researcher Jaz Morrison, as our current associate artist.
Jaz has been in the process of exploring culture building for Black British folx, that makes space for ancestral wisdoms, community care and honouring states of liminality. Jaz has curated a series of events, workshops and gatherings that bring Black communities together to interrogate these ideas further. As we take the journey into creating (meta)physical spaces and Temporary Autonomous Zones for Black British people, we hold onto the question: what could life - affirming Black British culture look like as a reclamation and ongoing exploration? What skills, principles and ancestral wisdoms could we take with us onto the Arkhe?
The following Lab description is written by Jaz Morrison:
British-born Black people have shared roots with the rest of the Black Afrikan Disapora, which can often influence our foundational sense of selves.
Caribbean, West African and African American cultures heavily feature in our everyday lives. Although we may access diaspora and heritage, these cultures were not designed with our context in mind. As the ‘Black British’ demographic becomes more pronounced, there is an increasing need for a culture that is intentionally built by us, for us.
Meaning ‘first principle’, the Arkhe is a semi-tangible embassy and vessel for Black Brits. It will first ‘dock’ at MAIA’s Yard Art House, before making visitations across the country.
An Afro-Speculative project, the Arkhe is the first morphological Black British Institution, designed to equip British-born Afro/Black people with:
1) historical and contextual education;
2) intentional, foundational Black British culture-building staples and rites;
3) and ways to gather, celebrate and organise despite limited access to space.
MAIA is a Black-led organisation exploring the connections between imagination and liberation. As a collective world building project, we draw upon Black imagination, culture, and more-than-human accountabilities to rehearse liberation into being.
The Arkhe’s lines of enquiries exist alongside MAIA’s three main focuses:
Sites of Imagination
Liminal Space, Temporary Autonomous Zones
‘In liminality, an individual is allowed to play with the factors of sociocultural experience. Experimenting with the social structure allows the person to develop a potentially unlimited series of alternative social arrangements. In this way, liminality becomes a primary source of social change.’
How can liminality inform the connotations of our culture (e.g. lore, aesthetic, values, language, collective goals, etc.)?
Where are our ‘Temporary Autonomous Zones’ – our unofficial and pop-up institutions?
What is at our disposal – and accessible to the community at large?
What are our ‘shared sacred stories’?
Culture for Liberation
Rites of Passage, Survival Guides & Toolkits
‘We are in a new context with differing catastrophic manifestations. […] Davidson and da Silva call attention to the African American theoretical and cultural tradition of ‘endurance and escape’, that is, enduring the ‘hostility of the current social order’, and escaping ‘the cycle of apocalyptic endings’ by developing ‘partially autonomous’ paths.’
What does it mean to come-of-age as a Black person born in Britain? Is this the same as being “Black British”?
What can we learn from our ancestors who survived, preserved, and forged new ways of being?
What are our foundational Black British artefacts, talismans, emblems, and cultural rites? Do we have foundational observances to celebrate/flex/grieve/heal/organise/talk?
How can the culture we build help Black Brits stave of resignation, apathy, and neoliberalism?
Resourcing the Movement
(Reference: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Hakim Bey)
Access, Education, Documentation
‘Scattered throughout the net were islands, remote hideouts where ships could be watered and provisioned, booty traded for luxuries and necessities. Some of these islands supported 'intentional communities,' whole mini-societies living consciously outside of the law and determined to keep it up, even if only for a short but merry life.'
What have we inherited that we want to hold on to? What currently grounds us in our identities?
What rites are we missing that could help us actualise? What do we need to add to our survival toolkits?
How do we preserve knowledge?
How can we utilise non-spaces in our culture building efforts?
About the Curator
Jaz Morrison is a British-Jamaican writer, multidisciplinary artist, & curator, exploring Afro-Speculative world-building for the purpose of creating new futures. She is also the founder of creative support group BRMTWN. Though her work is often contemplative, she enjoys embracing irreverence and farce too. Jaz sees herself as on a journey of sense– and memory–making, and such a journey requires duality.