Today, the public is invited to experience the powerful responses of 77 Black and Black mixed heritage artists to climate change through an immersive exhibition titled Reframe: The Residency Exhibition, created as part of the Southbank Centre’s landmark career acceleration programme Reframe: The Residency.
Reframe is an initiative to empower the next generation of Black creatives in the UK and helps address and remove the systemic barriers to career development Black creatives face in the arts and creative industries. This ground-breaking programme is part of Apple’s global Racial Equity and Justice Initiative and includes partners Factory International in Manchester, Birmingham City University’s STEAMhouse and Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham.
The exhibition is a collaborative body of climate-focused work by artists from Manchester, Birmingham and London, curated by renowned photographer Misan Harriman, Chair of the Southbank Centre. The free immersive installation combines film, photography, music and sound design and offers a unique perspective on the climate emergency, grounded in the cultural backgrounds of the artists. Through stunning visuals and soundscapes presented in a new exhibition space at the Southbank Centre – Reframe Studios – it reflects on the urgent need for collective action.
Responding to their familial heritage from the African continent and the Caribbean to the urban landscapes of Britain, the artists offer a profound response to an emergency that disproportionately impacts global majority communities.
The free exhibition opens Wednesday 19 July and closes Sunday 27 August.
Information about the 13 artworks can be found here.
The free exhibition is part of the Southbank Centre’s Planet Summer, a multi-artform season that explores themes of care, hope, connection and activism in response to the climate emergency which takes its inspiration from the latest Hayward Gallery exhibition, Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis.
Misan Harriman, Chair of the Southbank Centre, said: “We, the next generation of storytellers, are needed more than ever. The level of talent and intentionality in the Reframe project is second to none. I am incredibly proud of this cohort.”
