Social Obligation , a politically charged exhibition of black and white photographs by Thabo Jaiyesimi, documents the social condition and contemporary concerns in today’s Black British community. Social Obligation is a powerful critical instrument, harnessed to the cause of social change, political movements, protest and reform, in a style directly inherited from the golden age of social documentary, and the work of photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks and Roy Decarva.
Bringing to visibility, in an eloquent language, which heightens reality, those dimensions of the black experience that had been previously neglected or sidelined, vividly recording the moments of angry political confrontation (Stephen Lawrence investigation, the ban on Nation of Islam’s Farrakhan), but also offering quieter portraits and more understated images of “ordinary” daily existence, Social Obligation is a powerful documentary study, an archive of dramatic imagery of poverty and racism, leadership, struggles and achievements in the community. In portraiture, street, neighbourhood scenes, Thabo’s photographs document the dignity and complexity of today’s Black British life, concerned with the truthful representation of the day to day activities of urban life: “I feel I am archiving something meaningful, I want to have a greater insight into lives without imposing my own value judgments” Through the objective documentation of decisive or poignant moments, Social Obligation conveys, with a certain bluntness, the underlying idea of common destiny of the people of African descent in the UK.

Thabo Jaiyesimi’s work has been published in numerous periodicals and newspapers including The Guardian, The Independent and The Observer. His work has been widely exhibited, his most recent shows include Black British Style at the V&A and last year’s Brixton Graffic Show. He has recently conducted photography workshops at the Black Art Gallery in Los Angeles, USA and at the Alf Khumalo Museum in Soweto, South Africa. The exhibition will be complemented by a public appearance of Duwayne Brooks (for the launch of his book “Steve and Me”), and a public screening of short films by Kolton Lee (BFI Blackworld), Wayne Campbell and Lawrence Coke (Best Film, BFM Short Film Awards), followed by a Q&A session.

As the first group exhibition gathering Chris Bramble, Papa Essel and Emmanuel Okoro, Three Corner Stones built on countless millennia of storytelling traditions: using ceramics, sculpture and painting as primary means of transmitting their experiences, the three artists use narration as a way of making sense of the world. Proposing three reinvented founding myths, they invite the audience to dive into their multifaceted conception of our times, in which the Natural, the Spiritual and the Political are the three corner stones.

Inspired by Rodin and Zimbabwean sculpture, Chris Bramble’s ceramics are powerful depictions of the gamut of human experiences and the natural world around them. The material alone, the delicate balance and the use of masterful lines inherited from Shona sculpture invite exploration, both visually and mentally. Using a universal and contemporary language, Chris Bramble’s ceramics tell the story of today’s people and their way to initiation into full humanness.

In his vibrant and colorful paintings, Papa Essel links traditional Ghanaian art to a post-modern discourse, reflecting his interest in depicting historical, social and cross-cultural current affairs - in particular the bitter-sweet relationship between Africa and the West. Inspired by the notion of “word as image”, Papa Essel combines text with figurative images in his carefully balanced compositions, and tells, through the narrative of gold mining, the cynical socio-political story on which modern societies are built.

Displaying both a continuation from his Nigerian culture of origin, and that of outside influences, Emmanuel Okoro’s works evoke a natural organic rawness. Playing with the textures of clay, plaster, steel and bronze as modelling materials, Okoro has built on the notion of movement and form within his space to convey the mysterious atmosphere surrounding the founding myths of today’s cultures: his seductive figures seem to have arisen from the past, the mood of a piece changes as a face is drawn. Poetry in sculpture, Emmanuel Okoro’s works tell the story of our roots of belonging.

Marcia Bennett-Male’s exquisite sculptures are inspired by foodstuffs from the African-Caribbean market that dominates the area of South London where her studio is – everyday things such as stems of ginger, scotch bonnet chillies, chicken heads, feet and bones - all rendered with a classicist's eye for detail: although her work has a conceptual resonance and edge, her current influences are Dutch and Spanish seventeenth-century still life paintings with their sinister depiction of everyday objects.

An important factor in these works is the use of 'reclaimed' stone, sourced from various architectural sites where the buildings would have been paid for with slave trade money. Thus a pig's foot is hewn from the literal debris of a gone but not forgotten colonial era.

This appropriation and reworking of grimy old chunks of masonry, implicitly makes claim for one relatively unrecorded history of a people, over another more familiar and grandiose one.

Kitchen Tables, Last Threads also showcased some of Bennett-Male’s embroidery pieces, which, rich with personal and universal symbolism, are her attempt to deal with her long-standing mental health problems. Looking inwards, they deal with personal demons, but never come across as angst-ridden: they are infused with colour and subversive humour. As with her carvings, the pleasure resides in the wonderful disjunction between subject and object.