Be Good Now

“Be Good Now” reverberated within my mother’s mind then, in 1965, as she saw her mother turn away from her to board a plane, and as my mother looked toward her Grandma Winnie to protest, she was met with the look that any child from a Caribbean home recognises as, ‘leave it if you know what’s good for you.’

“Be Good Now”, equally a request and a command, from a mother to a child of who, neither knew when they would see each other again. Or if, when they saw each other, the foundation of pure love and care built in the first six years of my mother’s life, would be able to override the feelings of guilt, disappointment, and pain, when discovering that that six year old child wasn’t taken care of the way she should have been.

“Be Good Now”, a phrase I’m quite sure my mother never said to me whilst I grew up; it’s lingering threat of abandonment too painful to repeat to us children, when my mother would never, ever, leave us how she was left.

“Be Good Now”, even when read and not spoken, drops an anchor from the back of my eyes through my chest, dragging me into a deep well of trauma that permeated the body of my mother, like it had for hers, and hers, and those before. Wounds temporarily soothed through controllable feelings and successes, yet gashes that seep through generations that leave me desperate to understand why, and who, how, and why, that happened to my mother, and those things happened to hers, and why these things could happen to my grandmother, that she saw happen to hers, which leave me empty of a graspable identity to cling to as I plant my feet in the soil that colonised and catasrophised, and left the Barbados Museum filled with lies about how there were only 11 people on the island when the British took over.

“Be Good Now” echoed in waves throughout my mother’s life, finding its way back onto her tongue as we sat together in the garden of Courtney’s family holiday home, in Saint James on 31st May 2022. Three gentle sounding words, that feel like the only appropriate name to present this body of work which begins to bridge my innate and burning desire to piece together my fractured history, rich in complexity, gasping with necessity and desperate for the opportunity to explore what these words mean to my mother and to me, as a starting place and foundation to explore my history.

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Barbados grew my mother because she didn’t often have anything to eat at home when she wasn’t living with Grandma Winnie; she gorged on bulbous ackees and clambered up trees to suck on fresh mangoes until all that was left was dry seed and orange dew smeared across her face. Likkle Mahgrit filled her belly with dunks and sweet tamarinds, guava, her breath smelling sweet from juicy cherries and soft plums. Barbados grew my mother on red Frutee and Shirley biscuits, flying fish, cou cou and pudding and souse. Crumbs flew as she devoured pound cake, savoured every crunchy fluffy mouthful of fried lamb, fried sea eggs and fried chicken,

In 2019, my mother and I took a trip to Barbados for a week. I had begun wanting to form my own connections to the place where I saw my mother as a child leap out of her fifty-nine year old self. Barbados where when she rests, she rests in the peace that she lays on the land that fed her. How is it that with time, the land that allowed such abuse towards a child, can now heal the same wounds that remain open? - We walked around the neighbourhood that my mother grew up in, Black Rock, Saint Michael, and as we strolled to the plot of land where her mother’s first home was, she, always inquisitive, sparked up conversation with a man and woman working on their porch. “Is this where the old Straker house was?”, the roads without any signage, houses erect and disappear with the same speed, taking with them the fragmented memories which make it even harder to patch together ones past, and be sure of one’s own memories. “You Mahgrit?”

My mother was taken aback. Her eyes sparkled, yet I sensed hesitation, but my mother learned courage early on. I sensed some of her brothers presence in her mind; Halley, Vanel and Tony, riding their bikes down a hill, she wouldn’t have been allowed but one day when they were all out, she would steal one of their bikes and push it up to the top of a hill, excitement electrifying her marga self as she propped herself up on the saddle, legs out straight to the sides and sped down the hill. How she didn’t crash and bruk up herself, and the bike, only she will probably know.

She nodded and smiled encouragingly, and the woman responded. “Ah yes, your brothers was always talking bout you when you left for England, likkle Mahgrit.” She kept it together, but I felt a wave of relief wash over her. To feel like a burden for so long, only to find out as an adult that there was love, is a sentiment never too late to realise.

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I met Courtney in October 2021; I was looking for a personal assistant, and in her email she wrote five fun facts about herself, one of them was that she’s Bajan. Sharing a Bajan heritage didn’t impact my wanting to work with her, and at that point I didn’t realise how big a part of our bond our shared ancestry could become. Similarly to me, Courtney grew up spending summers in Barbados, yet hers found her welcomed into the extended and anticipating arms of her large Bajan family. Although only Courtney’s mother is half Bajan, the love and warmth of her grandfather’s oldest daughter, Auntie Gloria, wrapped around the family, providing a home for them in the small island which gained independence on the 30th November 1966, removing Queen Elizabeth II from head of state 55 years later in 2021.

I remember my first time in Barbados; my sister Jay and I wore matching stripy Tammy dresses and she enveloped me in her arms as we smiled at my mother taking a photograph of us outside my uncle Tony’s house, in front of the family car we had rented for our trip. I still sucked my thumb then, and always wanted to sit at the back of the car so I could suck my withering thumb in peace while I looked out of the window at this land that I knew bore my mother. Uncle Tony’s was small, and had a dark living room with a TV in it which in my memory was always playing an advert for tourism to Barbados. The americanised voices sung almost in lullaby “Tourism success, is Bajan progress” which sounded good to us as kids. My siblings and I chanted it throughout the trip; through stringy teeth sucking on sugar cane sticks that Uncle Tony chopped down not far from his home, through an afternoon spent exploring my Uncle Vanel’s farm, his loaded stomach protruding in a way which I could only describe as friendly, and while we sped down Uncle Tony’s street on our fold out scooters which my dad had brought for us all the way from home, and we shared with the other kids on our street.

Although we visited a few times during my childhood, I never felt what Courtney describes as “a warm hug” when I got off the plane. After that first time, our trips to Barbados were more similar to those of standard British tourists; commonly in Caribbean families, my mother lost touch with her siblings as they spread and fled the island for various reasons, many with the hope of returning and living one day, yet without the close knit familial foundation or culture that would keep 7 siblings born between 1938 and 1959 together through their additional 3 siblings passing away brutally in childhood, domestic violence, poverty, and beyond. It would be natural, as it was common practice for that generation of Bajan people, and the Windrush Generation as a whole, to bury many of these memories away in a bloodtight vault, deep in one’s psyche, with the hopes of forgetting and never being impacted by challenging secrets that lay in the minds of many of our parents and loved ones. They ended up here, through the struggles and hardships of those that came before, bearing smoothly lulling voices and carrying smiles and recipes; pushing to the fore what they could control, what they could enjoy, what felt good, into our lives which they fought so hard for our generation to enjoy. And I enjoyed.

Now, in my adulthood, I have created a life for myself which through my various creative practices, I am able to begin to explore the diasporic feeling of not belonging; not belonging in the UK where I was born, and not belonging in Barbados. Not belonging in Jamaica, where my grandmother on my father’s side is from, or belonging in Dominica where my grandfather on my father’s side is from. Not having any connection to Aruba, where my mother’s mother was born, or Panama where my mother’s father was born, we think, in 1898. I have the names given to them likely from plantation owners; Mckenzie, Merrifield, Straker, Holder. I have a starting place, Barbados, and the time and space to explore what my heritage means to me, while presenting my own narrative of what these spaces in my present feel like to me, and mean to me, and what I hope they could be, how I hope I could feel, how I want to feel, and making space for other voices to join mine.

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BE GOOD NOW, is the first of these explorations, a project created in collaboration with Acne Studios.

With the support of my dear friends and collaborators Courtney Mitchell and Tess Herbert. With words, that I’m so grateful to have the space to share by my mother and continual inspiration and support, Margaret Straker Mckenzie. Alongside my brother - my mother’s little buddy - Marcel, and his partner sweet Daphne. Captured during a trip to Barbados, 13th May - 2nd June, 2022.

Entangled Pasts

Royal Academy of Arts, London 

(3 February–28 April 2024)

Review by Ronan McKenzie

There is a large billboard in Hackney, East London, advertising ‘Entangled Pasts’, an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Bright orange and eye-catching, alongside a list of names of prominent artists with reputations that may entice you to pay the £22 pounds admission fee for this vaguely titled exhibition, the advert features a quote from Lubaina Himid; an artist incredibly well respected and admired, a pioneer of the Black Arts Movement, a source of reason and leader of action, someone to be listened to. The quote reads: ‘It’s telling the story of how we all contributed to the complicated place that we’re in now’.

Is it though?

The last time we heard the word ‘entangled’ thrown around was when Jada Pinkett Smith brought herself to her Red Table in 2020, to admit to her relationship with August Alsina. Will Smith laughed, awkwardly. At another table, or Zoom call in 2021, Axel Ruger, Andrea Tarsia and Adrian Locke initiated the idea of an exhibition that has become ‘Entangled Pasts’. There may have been someone at that table that laughed awkwardly, perhaps about the fact that The Royal Academy was to exhibit a major exhibition of Black artists from the American South – Souls Grown Deep Like Rivers (2023) – before addressing their relationship to Black artists from the British all-over. Yet, the avoidance of responsibility in using the word ‘entangled’ in the title of this exhibition, which by definition is ‘cause to become twisted together with or get caught in’, seems to excuse The Royal Academy’s active role in upholding systems that kept the oppressed down.

Himid’s phrase ‘we all contributed’ implies a sort of equality in the contributions from those who are being referred to. It hints that the responsibility for actions that have led to ‘the complicated place that we’re in now’ has been taken by the perpetrators. It implies that artists like Himid have contributed to the complication. However, without specifying exactly what complication Himid is referring to, the advertisement could be read as equalising the malicious intention of those who derived their wealth or profiteered from the transatlantic slave trade and colonisation with those who, through no choice or action of their own, became children of an empire which sought to exploit and rupture their lives and the lives of those who followed them.

The lack of context for this quote within the promotion of the exhibition creates a feeling of co-signature; the recognisable twang of 2020/2021’s influx of diversity initiatives within workplaces, which burdened black employees with the responsibility of becoming spokespeople and doing tasks way out of their jurisdictions, to create the optics of inclusive workplaces or appropriate brand messaging.

Dorothy Price and Sarah Lea note in their exhibition introduction: ‘The global pandemic of 2020 made manifest the stark injustices of dominant political systems embedded in colonial matrices of economic power that continue to affect Black and Brown bodies’. Again, a familiar feeling; Black people being referred to not as people, which may evoke empathy, but bodies, like commodified, apathetic beings. It is surprising that in a clearly intentional effort to right the wrongdoings of the past, the language used to refer to the black people – which implies one’s position in relation to them – hasn’t changed with it.

It is interesting to choose an African American artist’s work as the lead image for an exhibition exploring Britain’s relationship to art and history. The piece ‘no world’ from the series ‘An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters’ will be most viewers’ first impression of the show. The monochrome etching is moody and subtle and it is incredibly difficult for one’s interpretation and response to not be heavily influenced by one’s own experience and relationship to the scene depicted, or what it brings to mind. In simply attending this exhibition, the viewer becomes part of this collective attempt to detangle centuries of power imbalance and exploitation.

Hundreds of years are summarised in a hundred pieces of artwork, many with clumsy or ignorant accompanying captions, haphazardly scattered across dark red red walls, between clear white walls, beyond blood red curtains. One of these captions is placed beside Margaret Burroughs’ Black Venus (1957), which references her choice to cite Botticelli’s ‘The Birth of Venus’ (1484-86): ‘I saw a parallel between the fantasy he depicted and the very reality of Black American Womanhood.’ The artist explains that: ‘slave masters selected the most beautiful of the Virgin Black slave women for their own personal use. And yet these women survived to become mothers of a nation.’ As a viewer of the exhibition with the small exhibition guide that is handed out on entry, the context of the origin of the quote and further comment on the work aren’t available, yet the work is placed within the context of powerful dreamlike and fantasy artworks. Unlike the full exhibition catalogue, which offers important context, the quote on the wall could be understood to romanticise the traumas of the violent abuse against slave women, celebrating the resilience and strength needed for survival.

The Royal Academy’s attempt at redemption and re-education lies tangled in the bedsheets of history it chose to ignore, until its future and fate became reliant on owning up to its past.

Becoming Eternal In Your Joy
On Baff Akoto

Walking through the waters of everlasting beauty. What took you so long to get here? Haven’t you seen your grandmother’s eyes enscripted on the palm of your hand? A calling. She waved goodbye. But you never waved back. Because you knew. You knew it wasn’t your time to leave the edges of the earth. Another calling. You force the future. Becoming is a lesson you teach yourself every morning. Becoming eternal in your joy. Becoming is a struggle. Becoming to be able to walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. Walking. Through. This water. Of everlasting beauties. — Leave the Edges

To enter into the world of Baff Akoto’s reoccurring dreams is to allow oneself the luxury of time not often given to exploring the nuances or plurality of experiences of the diasporas. To not just view but become a participant in the celebration of life that is presented in front of us throughout commercial and personal realms, subverting the general impression of commerciality not being a space for story, but a bridge to opportunities of further expansion of ideas which are closer to the heart, and resting on the soul.

West London-born Akoto grew up with one football boot-clad foot firmly in the UK, and the other sole planted in Accra, Ghana, through frequent visits following his first trip at six months of age, until eventually settling into school there as a teenager. Conscious of leaving what he then thought of as ‘the centre of the world’ – London being a very specific melting pot of remnants of colonial empire, creating a unique collection of global culture – Akoto was then immersed in his heritage and culture, with the opportunity to make Ghana home. Akoto was thrust into pan-Africanism and global diasporic culture, whose prominence was ever more visible – a journeying of which the value grew as time passed, and which has continued to inform the aesthetic and perspective of Akoto’s works.

The traditional song for me. It’s through traditional song that man expresses himself… It’s his treasure, his home. — Leave the Edges

There is a freedom in allowing oneself to be specific in intention, in the gentle guiding of the viewer down a path of moving-image pieces which evoke a welcome familiarity. ‘There is a way in which people who aren’t of a culture can recognise the universality in a piece of work which speaks to a specific point of view,’ Akoto notes. ‘Humanity is an exercise in empathy.’ Akoto’s short-form earlier works which introduce this Focus programme are a playing; the informal training of the untrained eye through editorial work, music projects and commercials that fluidly create space for themselves between long-form documentary and TV drama works, which allowed for a grounding of craft, and made up a solid foundation off which to leap.

It is within these earlier works where Akoto’s interest in biomechanic anthropology cemented. His long-standing interest in the body churned and thickened: ‘What one’s body is able to do, how it presents, and what that will mean for you in terms of quality of life, ease of life, and status.’ These are ideas of continual standing and questioning – from Pour Hommes (2010) to Shirts vs Skins (2015) and Rolling On (2015). These investigations are fingertips to hands carrying the lived experiences of the ‘disaggregation of Blackness’, which Akoto describes as a ‘lifetime of unpacking’, it being ‘to breathe and understand that there are a million different ways that you can be Black, and that’s okay’. Be it the playful repetition of Eno Williams’ movements in Let’s Dance (Yak Inek Unek) (2015) by Ibibio Sound Machine or the gradual building of her physical being to represent the plurality within our stories, our statements and our stances, Leave The Edges (2020) – is a culmination of the coming together of Akoto’s learnings, the meeting point at which the fork of his experiences harmonise in a longer, investigative piece.

Leave the Edges is purposeful in creating a clear vision of Akoto’s perspective. Akoto presents the viewer with a generous plate upon which each element has been measured to ensure the balancing of the light, space, and most generously, time. When the plane ahead is wide, it’s for the viewer to look to the corners, and to be encouraged between the frames. It’s to explore beyond, way into the distance of the blue-pink sky, to the building on the horizon. It’s to the figure crossing the background, and the tension in each finger of the dancer as each ripple of fabric flies free with each spin, and to the ruffles of her hem sitting just so. It’s to notice the posture of the figure to the left of the screen, as Akoto allows the viewer the privilege of becoming submerged in the scene to a point that engages with an innate sense of touch and atmosphere. It’s to create a visual environment in which the experience is one that flows through one’s body, responding from a pre-verbal state of observation and acceptance, of what is without a judgement of what one knew, what was before.

Becoming is a lesson you teach yourself every morning. — Leave the Edges

Within the warming arms of Akoto’s practice, there is a celebration of the everyday exemplified. Such documentation is rarely afforded to Black communities, yet the importance of acknowledging such tenderness and sensitivity is monumental in rebuilding a sense of self. Where becoming is a journey taken not out of loss, but of love.

My London

Growing up, my London was expansive yet contained; shaped by my close relationship with my immediate family; my mother who would pick me up from primary school wearing a leather pencil skirt, her hair sharply cut in to a high top, or sometimes shaved right down to her scalp, large earrings dangling by her shoulders, ready to be taken out quick quick if I wanted to race her up the market. My father, never in too much of a hurry, his crown being the smile he rarely takes off, even while falling asleep at the dinner table after a long day’s work, with time to take us to our extra curricular activities, and give us four children piggy packs down the stairs individually, so we could each make a grand entrance to the kitchen. My siblings; Jay, my confidant, Siobhan, who spoilt me for being the baby, and Marcel, who I’d have the most fun and the biggest fights with over marbles or paper planes. My mother would always give us three birthday cards each to make up for the lack of a wider network of family around us; both of my parents being distant from their siblings and extended family meant that my family was small, and my family is my London.

As I’ve gotten older, my family has broadened; for me, family equates to comfort, and comfort equates to London. I’m twenty six now, and I’ve learned and experienced that the comfort that comes from knowing someone for a long time can also be felt not knowing someone at all. I grew up content within my London, but being a second generation Caribbean immigrant meant that I struggle to claim British soil as my home, and the craving for acceptance by way of shared experience, or a tracing of my lineage continues to be explored within my artistic practices; family, friends, lovers have consistently been subjects within my photographs; an interest in observing connection, and presenting comfort within a relationship allows me to find an acceptance within myself.

In 2018 I curated an exhibition titled “I’m Home”, a collection of works from Liz Johnson- Artur, Rhea Dillon, Joy Gregory and myself, exploring themes of home and family. On opening night, my sisters sold exhibition catalogues, my brother and partner served an elderflower mixup at our makeshift bar, my mother basked in the entryway where I presented a photographic documentation of her, and my father mingled in the main room. Two young girls in their early twenties approached my father, “Excuse me, is your name Roy?”. My father taken aback, thinking where he could possibly know these young girls from affirmed the question, and one of the young girls replied “You’re my uncle Roy!”. The conversation transpired; photographer Olivia Lifungula who knew of my work had brought her friend Jordan to the show. Jordan tired, tagged along and found herself enjoying my works, and spotted a familiar face in the space. Having seen my father at her grandmother’s (my step-grandmother) funeral just a couple of years earlier, she recognised my father as the half-brother of her mother. She then asked why he was at this exhibition and he, elated, exclaimed that this was his daughter’s exhibition, so, her cousin, and her family was all over the space.

I grew up in Walthamstow, Jordan in Clapton, so close yet our London’s were so far apart. Connected by Jordan, I met our cousin Sade in LA while we were both there on jobs a month after I’m Home; being aware of each other before as we work in similar circles, it was more a surprise to us than to others that we were related. As children, it wasn’t up to us to stay connected, as adults, it is, and finding a connection in my adulthood with my family has opened up my London in a way that I didn’t realise was possible. These images are a celebration of our comfort with each other, our connection, and our lineage, of our story of our granddad making the journey to London, where we all now reside.

These images are an ode to of granddad; smiling, barbecue fish loving, beer drinking, Gabriel Merrifield of Dominica.

My Mother's Hands

And Saturdays were what her week had revolved around when she was younger, much smaller than she was now, full cheeks shining with astral cream, tough locks held back tight in a three headed doodoo plait monster that would usually only last a day or two before they begun to spring wildly and defiantly into separate directions, unwinding until the previous braided form was unrecognisable and a messy pile of heavy healthy hair rested excitedly above her glowing forehead. How all her blood rose to to top of her body when her hair was done because when her mother’s quick fingers tried their best to be painless and quick, runaway coils lost their way and found themselves trapped under her mother’s wrist positioned perfectly to be pulled with the slightest movement and she would yell and wriggle and turn and try her best not to yelp but usually failed and the pain leaving her body through vocal energy turned to the weak silent cry she had cried when her mother shouted at her father and she hid under her bed her nose buried deep in to someone else’s pyjamas not wanting anyone to recognise her despair. It was when her mothers strong grip grasped the tiny slithers of hair right at the back of her little head that had hurt her the most and her neck jerked forward and her mother had already done two little heads before hers and really didn’t want to her hurt her but knew her bouncing afro would knot up real quick and be even worse later if she didn’t sit still now so she pulled the comb from the parting and rested her lived hands on her bony shoulders, her half done head of hair relaxing on to her mother’s scarred knee, the break from the plaiting a relief much needed but short lived as her mother frustratingly asked her if she wanted something to cry for, and she withdrew her mouth inwards, letting her teeth rest on her bottom lip and raising her eyebrows the small amount left to raise after her forehead had already been lifted to almost the maximum from the tight plaits. As she had sat and considered her mother’s question taking the time for some of the fire to leave her head through the well parted hair atop her sensitive scalp, and a fragile whisper “no” left her mouth as a hot tear ran down her glistening cheek and the plaiting proceeded. And the painful hair-doing had all been before her sweet sweet mother had realised that she would be happy with three ugly fat doodoo plaits and messy hair that most other mother’s would frown upon but at least she would be happy and that’s all her mother had ever wanted.

On Love

I first messaged Joy on 9th September 2017, on 14th September I said I was a huge fan. They told me that their girlfriend had come to one of my exhibitions and got them hooked on my work. On 8th November I asked if they wanted to go for a coffee, we met up on 17th. Then on Friday 15th December we went to the Barbican and drew people. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I got a figure from Joy’s Blue Glass Fortunes tattooed on my neck, and on my left hand, “I just thought about my life, has it been mine and I just… I want to feel good now.” from their painting Feeling Good, so that in moments of needing to find clarity, or soothing, the warmth of Joy’s friendship fills my soul and re-centres me.

To feel cared for, to feel the comfort of one’s tenderness, and to extend that outwards is to open one’s heart, soul, and spirit to sharing the heights of our happiness, and the instability of our uncertainty, to breathe heavily at the end of a phone line knowing we will be collected, held, and supported at the other end. To be open to finding intimacy is to be open to finding disappointment, to navigate difficult conversations because no matter how challenging, it’s easier than accepting the loss of that person without trying. To bathe in the heat of a laugh so deep it fills the atmosphere with a tang so infectious that together even years later, we can so easily tap back into that moment shared with one that we love in the cushioned hammock of our bond. To accept the respect, trust, responsibility, knowledge, care and commitment - as described by bell hooks - needed to accept one’s love, we must find within ourselves the sunshine that our loved ones so easily see.

In continuation of our ongoing exploration of, love for, search of, enjoyment of, and need to express, and present alike, our devotion to each other, and the tranquillity, stability, and acceptance found within our community, On Love is a response to the indescribable feeling of holding, and being held. We thank you for sharing this space with us, in celebration of caring for one another.