Get Up, Stand Up Now is a major new exhibition at Somerset House celebrating the past 50 years of Black creativity in Britain and beyond. The exhibition explores migration, psychological and social borders, the body and participation, power and resistance.
During its run, the Somerset House Studios summer programme will expand on these themes, bringing together artists and creatives whose work comments on what it means to be Black today. Going beyond the representation of Blackness as a “celebration of culture” or as a homogeneous cultural identity, a programme of music, performance, DJs and drag will create space to discuss the sometimes difficult or uncomfortable issues around Black diasporic experiences in relation social and political conditions of their making.
The hope is to bring a broad audience face to face, listening and in dialogue with Black artists, and in doing so, chip away at the collective amnesia fuelled by mainstream media.
These events are open for all to attend.