This mural at Lower Gilmore Place, exhibits a powerful portrait of Frederick Douglass, the former enslaved man who became one of the most prestigious antislavery agents of his time. The building is the location in which Fredrick Douglass resident while in Edinburgh in 1846, eight years after escaping the brutal regime of his enslaver on a plantation in Maryland.
Following his escape, Douglass became a leading light in the US abolitionist movement and was sent to Great Britain on a speaking tour.
Adebusola Ramsay, born in Lagos, Nigeria, lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She is an abstract artist, whose practice has developed over the last 20 years. Her art takes form in painting and printmaking, working mostly with acrylics and features evocative colour contrast and textural detail. She explores different forms of mark-making to create new perspectives in irregular line and colour patterns.
Obfuscation was painted reflecting on how we are conditioned into certain ways of thinking and how our current oppressive modes of social ordering came to be and are maintained.
Tony Brown Kalisa is an 18-year-old self-taught graphic artist, born in Uganda he has called Edinburgh his home for 4 years. His style utilities a variety of images and techniques to build a design made up of many layers. Tony’s creative practice is continually inspired by his mother who raised him as a single parent with African values in a western context.
His artwork was inspired by the various protest that happened across the world in response to the killing of George Floyd and in support of Black Lives Matter and the fact that this show of solidarity was lead by young people of all races.
North Edinburgh Arts, 15a Pennywell Rd, Edinburgh EH4 4TZ
Farah is an Edinburgh artist who works in watercolour, acrylic, pastel, collage and charcoal. As a disabled woman of South East Asian heritage, Farah has lived experience of racism and discrimination which is often reflected in her work. In 2019 her work featured in the Out of Sight, Out of Mind exhibition at Summerhall.
Farah Nazley
Her artwork calls for an end to racism. Full Stop!
Jupiter Artland, Bonnington House The Steadings, Wilkieston, Edinburgh EH27 8BY
Saoirse’s creative process is inspired by her fascination with interconnectedness and movement in both everyday life, and her cultural heritage. She considers the potential that lies in caring for ourselves and others and the extent to which this nurturing can benefit us both personally and politically.
“We Can Still Dance references the negative impact of Hollywood’s Magical Negro trope on myself and many others. This trope enforces the stereotype that Black people merely exist to nurture and support our white counterparts. I want to flip this stereotype to reinforce Audre Lorde’s idea that caring for ourselves as Black womxn is an act of political warfare and allows us to define our own destiny. We may project our light onto the world, but first, we must shine for ourselves.
Personally, I feel this self-nourishment while dancing. If ever I am confronted by fear, I try to remember that Audre told me “I can still dance”, and the fear turns itself into fire.
The Queens Hall, Clerk St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9JG
The problem of police brutality in Black and Brown communities has become a very frustrating issue. Part of the reason for exasperation lies with the fact that we are divided as a country when it comes to the notion of responsible policing. This became apparent when the “Black Lives Matter” movement was quickly met by obstinate supporters of police officers, rebelliously retorting chants of “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter.”
Playing with the misleading statement “all lives matter” I would like to take off one letter changing the statement to “all li es matter” which I find simple but strong.
Rudy Kanhye is a French Artist, curator and writer. Masters graduate of Glasgow School of Art, Rudy developed his practice around the dialogue between cultures, people, past, present and what the future could be. Working primarily with themes related to identity, history, and popular culture. His work focuses on framing and context.
UncoverEDComments Off on Colonial Students’ Hostel
Oct192020
36 Hope Terrace, Edinburgh EH9 2AR
36 Hope Terrace
36 Hope Terrace contained the ‘Colonial Students’ Hostel’ in the 1940s. A “three-story building with basement rooms,” this is where many students from British colonies would stay upon their arrival in Edinburgh. Secretary of State for the Colonies Arthur Creech Jones made it clear, however, that such hostels provided only temporary accommodation, and colonial students “should live and work on the same conditions as students in this country rather than be segregated into permanent hostels of their own.” Ghanaian medical student Emmanuel Evans-Anfom stayed here when he matriculated at Edinburgh in 1941. In his memoir To the Thirsty Land: Autobiography of a Patriot, Evans-Anfom recalled, “Apart from the residential accommodation at the hostel, there were a small restaurant, dining-room and sporting facilities like a billiards room, a library, and a reading room with newspapers. It was really a place where even non-resident colonial students […] could come for relaxation and subsidized meals.” At the Colonial Students’ Hostel, Evans-Anfom met students “from West Africa, Nigerians, Sierra Leonians, Gambians, and, of course, students from the Caribbean. […] And even after we had finally got permanent lodgings we could always go back to use the facilities at 36 Hope Terrace.”
Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942
Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942
Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942
In the 1960s, Kenneth Ramchand lived in a “Trinidad Boys” flat at 23 Marchmont Crescent. Ramchand completed his MA and PhD at Edinburgh, writing his thesis on Caribbean Literature. In his book of collected essays Disappointed Guests, Ramchand writes about his loneliness and experiences of racism at Edinburgh. He describes how both romantic and platonic friendships with white students were taboo, and how in his first year he had to stick “firmly to the group” of fellow West Indians. One white student could not comprehend that he did not play calypso or cricket, signaling, in Ramchand’s words, his “refusal to see the black man as a whole individual.” After leaving Edinburgh, Ramchand became the first Professor of West Indian Literature at the University of the West Indies, and published his first book, The West Indian Novel and its Background in 1970. He said: “it was influential in the creation and internationalization of an academic discipline called “West Indian Literature”; it stimulated the development of graduate studies in the Department of English of the University of the West Indies.” Ramchand has been the recipient of many awards, including the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters (2014).
Kenneth Ramchand (left) with Surinamese writer Ismene Krishnadath
The sixth floor of 1 Roseneath Terrace was home to Eustace Akwei while he studied medicine at Edinburgh during the 1940s. Coincidentally, another Ghanaian medical student, Emmanuel Evans-Anfom, would later move into the very same room. The landlady was therefore “familiar with the ways of students from the Gold Coast” and remarked that Eustace Akwei was “a courteous and cultured gentleman”. Eustace Akwei trained to become a doctor in Edinburgh at a time when it was official policy to exclude indigenous African from practicing medicine in West Africa. From the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of 1945, the medical services in British West Africa were amalgamated and in 1902 the West African Medical Staff (WAMS) was formed. The WAMS formally rejected any physician not of “European parentage” from its ranks and was the only department in the British empire to do so. In 1955, more than half a century after this racist policy was first enacted and a decade after it was repealed, Eustace Akwei became the first Ghanaian to be appointed Chief Medical Officer in the Gold Coast. In 1958, he was one of the prominent doctors present at the inauguration of the Ghana Medical Association.
Theodore Clerk, the first professionally certified Ghanaian
architect, lived at 3 Bruntsfield Place between 1940 and 1942. Coming from a
large family of pioneering scholars and clergy, Theodore secured a government scholarship
to study Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art in 1938. Whilst still a
student, Clerk worked for both the Scottish National Buildings Record and the
Department of Health for Scotland, undertaking measuring work and housing
surveys. Upon completing his examinations in 1943, Clerk was admitted as an
associate by the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) and was awarded
the Rutland Prize by the Royal Scottish Academy. When Clerk returned to Ghana,
he was, for a time, the only Ghanaian architect in the country. Clerk is best
known for his work on the port city of Tema, the largest seaport in Ghana.
Commissioned by President Kwame Nkrumah, he designed and built affordable
housing for low-income dockworkers at the harbour. Clerk was also the first
president of the Ghana Institute of Architects and authored its first
constitution. Theodore’s sister, Matilda J. Clerk, was also a student at
Edinburgh. She was the second Ghanaian female doctor and the first Ghanaian
woman to be awarded a scholarship for university education abroad.
