Single Black Femme

26 Jul 2024 6.30-7.45pm

Overview

I Know Why the Caged Bird Screams: A performance lecture by Rashayla Marie Brown

Join artist Rashayla Marie Brown (RMB) for a performance lecture, using photography and voice to explore Black femme performance.

RMB's performance lecture will use photography, performance and voice-over to investigate Black femme performativity. It will draw on the artist's research into the history of commercial photography and reference Black women artists, including the first global celebrity Josephine Baker, to media mogul Oprah Winfrey. This multi-media performance will accompany RMB's Starr Fellow display Single Black Femme (I am My Own Institution) in the Weston Studio at the Royal Academy.

The performance lecture will be followed by a conversation with RMB discussing her exhibition and wider practice.

Rashayla Marie Brown (RMB) is an “undisciplinary” artist, educator, and writer who changes narratives of power and access. Creating emotionally engaging, audience-oriented artworks that critique form and aesthetics, RMB works in installation, photography, performance, writing, and moving image, alongside an absurdist critique of institutions. RMB is currently the Starr Fellow of the Royal Academy Schools, while completing her Ph.D. dissertation in Performance Studies at Northwestern University.

Bolanle Tajudeen is the founder of Black Blossoms, an art school and curatorial platform dedicated to amplifying the practices of artists of colour. Her research delves deeply into the contemporary and historical artistic practices of Black women and non-binary people, with a strong emphasis on the complex intersections of gender, race, and class. She has also devised and taught the course "Art in the Age of Black Girl Magic" at Tate Britain, which examined the paucity of Black women in cultural institutions and explores how they have creatively challenged this through radical interventions and DIY approaches. Additionally, Bolanle serves as the Public Art Curator for the Bristol Legacy Foundation. In partnership with Bristol City Council, she is commissioning a permanent commemorative artwork to honour the legacy of the Transatlantic Trafficking of Enslaved Africans.

Rashayla Marie Brown (RMB) is this year's Starr Fellow at the Royal Academy Schools, a year-long residency for a visual artist from the US. Single Black Femme will be at the Royal Academy from Friday 5th July to Sunday 25th August.
 

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