Wednesday 24 September 2014

Exhibit B


Kate Stafford writes:


Last night I had tickets for the opening night of Brett Bailey's installation EXHIBIT B at the Barbican. Only I didn't see it, because it was closed down by a reportedly violent mob of protesters, due to concerns that the safety of both audience and performers could not be guaranteed. I feel ashamed to be living in a country where this could happen. After engaging with some of the protesters on twitter, it became clear that this issue had become polarised, not least because the argument was being conducted in bite-sized chunks, 140 characters long.


And of course the argument is largely between people who support it - but haven't seen it, and people who oppose it - but haven't seen it.


When (Associate Artistic Director) Amy Bonsall was up in Edinburgh this year, she did see it. And I have seen Brett Bailey's work in South Africa. We are also white and working in African theatre, as is Brett Bailey. So it occurred to us that we may actually have something to add to the discussion.


So last night we started a conversation, which I am reproducing here. At the end I have added some links to further opinions, reviews and discussion pieces.


Firstly I asked Amy for her response to the show. This is what she wrote, off the top of her head, late at night:


Exhibit B.


I am a White woman. I am a middle class white woman. I am a dyslexic middle class white woman. I am a mother. I am a wife. I have knowledge of some things I have no knowledge of others.


I was born in Scotland, I have spent most of my life in England. I work in Theatre. I work in Theatre that prejudices Southern and Eastern African work. And Shakespeare.


I say all of that because context is both essential and irrelevant.


I saw Exhibit B at the Edinburgh Festival. I saw it because Jan Ryan of UK Arts International who produced it knew that I wanted to see it and she made sure that I was able to. I don't know Brett Bailey and nor have I seen any of his other work. I had seen some controversy about it, about the way the work was presented on the Scotnites forum. But had only seen this in fragments.


I sat downstairs waiting for my number to be called. I didn't hear all the instructions and so felt ill at ease, that I was going to mess up the piece for everyone else by getting it wrong. My number was called and up the stairs I went. Formal and silent, directed by solemn ushers as to where to go. The first performance is that of 2 people, naked from the waist up. Their vital statistics in a book, open - a live re-creating of the appalling practice of treating human beings as possessions, to use, to trade.


I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed to be white.


I made myself read each and every statistic and to look at each body part so as to treat that person as a person and not glide over them as though they were an object. And it was uncomfortable, and challenging and I felt ashamed.


I tried to do the same at each other 'exhibit'? see, that seems wrong because they are performances, they are directed performances and the people volunteering are actors. They may not be professional actors, they are volunteers, but they are actors in the context that they are performing of their own free will. And each 'performance/exhibit' has a story and has characters. Each of the stories is factually correct, and is horrifying. 


Some of the stories I had heard of, and some I had not, I guess it was about a 50/50 split between the two. The depiction of stories from modern times back through hundreds of years of colonial barbarity illustrated how appalling humans are to each other. How appalling some white people were and are to people of colour and black people, and people of other races, sexes and it made me feel sick. It made me feel like I could not nor should not look. It made me feel ignorant, it made me feel that dialogue is essential. It clearly illustrated how racism is alive and happening, and though I was aware of this before, the performances presented stats and figures in a visceral and horrendous way. And not only stats and figures, of the experiences of people I know and people who I have heard about. It was all there, in that room and it was inescapable and I felt culpable. 


My family were working in mills for a pittance at the turn of the century. So who was responsible. And we know who was. It made me think even more clearly about what we do about it, how so so much more must be done. What is my responsibility in that? The white marble heads looking down over the scenes they could be indirectly responsible for was disturbing.



The conversation between Amy and I continued into the night:


KS: I have been reading some articles and reviews written in response to the work, in South Africa and Europe. Everywhere the reviews have been extraordinary. It seems that this work opens up a painful wound, forcing us to look again at our attitudes and how society treats race. So I am incredibly sad that although I had tickets, I was unable to see this work, to be challenged by it and experience it. I think that there is a real misunderstanding by many people of what it is really about: there has been a hysteria around the assumption that because Brett Bailey is a white South African, then his work is inherently racist. As I say, I haven't seen this. But I have seen another of his plays.


I saw iMumbo Jumbo in a township in the outskirts of Grahamstown back in (I think) 2004. It was challenging, aggressively anti-colonial and scary. As a white person in a largely black audience in a black township (they bussed the audience in) I felt insecure, and the rage of the people who had lived under apartheid was palpable.


Anyone calling Brett Bailey racist is seriously misunderstanding where he is coming from, and refusing to listen to what he has to say.


AB: The reason why I am so angry about this is because in the UK we have freedom of speech, we do not have censorship, And that is were I start from. Freedom of speech is not, as has been suggested to me time and time again about this a wishy washy neo liberal construct. it is absolutely essential in preventing this terror happening again, and indeed in highlighting it when it is happening now. because it is happening now.


KS: To stop his voice, his expression, is a dreadful thing to do. I truly believe that people want to shut him up because of the colour of his skin. Which is ironic, really, don't you think?


AB: Many of the reactions against Exhibit B seem to be against the lack of diversity at the Barbican in its management structure and programming and community engagement and ACE and the same charges. And I would agree with all of those. But that is not the fault of this piece.


And so so many are basing their opinions of the piece on what they have read in the media and on petitions. They have not seen it. And that is absolutely their right , but they do not have the right to stop a performance. That is censorship. It goes against everything an equal and free society should be.


KS: It's a shame that when one of our national cultural institutions do finally showcase work addressing race, colonialism and our attitudes to immigrants, the popular media manage to somehow turn it on it's head, and call it racist.


AB: I can not agree with statements that imply that black people can only work on black art and white people on white. that is offensive to all, and the world does not work like that.


KS: All of us can only respond truthfully to our own experience. Whatever our background, race or culture. And another irony is that having read a lot about the piece, I'm fairly sure I would have hated it. I read a blog by Selina Thompson who saw the piece, absolutely hated it, and I think I may well have had a similar reaction. But of course the opportunity is now not there for me.


AB: She has seen it, and while I have a different experience and opinion from her, we both have the right in a democracy and country of free speech to pay our money if we wish and to see it.


KS: I just wish that people would see the work, and then respond. the woman that started the petition talked about how she couldn't take her 12 year old daughter to see such terrible depictions of black people. Well of course she couldn't! That would be entirely inappropriate, because a child would not be able to understand the context, what the artist is saying.


AB: I have not said it isn't racist. I have never been able to get that far in discussing it because the argument has overwhelmingly focused on a white man directing black actors. Many have accused the Director of being self indulgent. Can you not throw that at every single artist who shares their art with an audience? If he had no cast there would be no play - if there was no audience there would be no play.




The day before EXHIBIT B was closed down, Brett Bailey released a statement. The closing sentence was:



"Do any of us really want to live in a society in which expression is suppressed, banned, silenced, denied a platform? If my work is shut down today, whose will be closed down tomorrow?"

Lee Jasper: Barbican shut down Bailey's offensive 'Human Zoo'
Selina Thompson's blog
article in The Guardian


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