Roy Mehta

Thank you to today’s Sunday Observer for publishing an image from ‘REVIVAL, LONDON, 1989-1993’. The photo book is part of Brent 2020 London Borough of Culture telling the stories of people in the borough continuing into 2021. theguardian.com/artanddesign/2… @hoxtonminipress @LBOC2020

Newsletter out today! @ellie_laycock @roymehta2 mailchi.mp/lauraannnoble.…

Pleasure to write about The 80s: Photographing Britain a major exhibition and book by / at @Tate until May 2025 - 26 NOV Issue of @AP_Magazine

Spot on from @kenanmalik theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Just saw Perfect Days and what a very lovely film it is - quiet and thoughtful and moving. I came out and walked up the street NOTICING everything! Which in large part is what the film is about I think. Loved it.

Always in our thoughts ❤️

Just listening to @BBCRadio2 Jeremy Vine show discussing the Church of England reparations story. Aside from the moral and political struggle over reparations themselves, the brief, adversarial exchanges (and I know I shouldn't read too much into them) highlighted how little many Britons still seem to understand about the scale and lasting impact of trans-Atlantic slavery. The church's role was reduced to participation in the South Seas Company and Queen Anne's bounty and even that was not tied to the living it gave to clergy. The church mission wing's ongoing ownership of two Barbados plantations was not mentioned, nor the fact that clergy were split over abolition (despite Wilberforce), and neither did there seem any awareness that CoE clergy owned enslaved people as their private 'property. One brave caller, understandably outraged that a clergyman's wife compared the call for more reparations to a child being given a bicycle and demanding a Jaguar, did at least manage to get in that compensation was paid to slave owners but not the enslaved. Most depressing is ignorance of the ways in which Atlantic slavery configured the world we still inhabit. A persistent theme was, 'it's all in the past', 'two hundred years ago so no one is still alive', and 'where does it all end'. Jeremy Vine took the comment 'Should we get compensation for what the Vikings did to us' as a meaningful analogy. Such comparisons should be immediately risible, and perhaps will be when we allow our education system to hone some really basic facts about Atlantic slavery: This was a system in which most European nations took only Black Africans and no one else - 12.5 million of them - as captives to the other side of the world to become capital assets for their owners, and produce and process commodities, helping Europe become 'developed'. At the same time it depopulated and destabilised large swathes of Africa and left the legacy of a largely asset-stripped Black population in the Caribbean. The aggregate geographical and racial inequalities it instituted are not difficult to identify, and they are very obviously still with us generations later. Unlike any ongoing effects of Viking raids. Obviously. If only we could have a better informed public discourse on our colonial past, not just slavery, and its effects. Trying to be more positive: at least we now have really popular books like @Sathnam's Empireworld, informed by recent historical research, to recommend.

No, those problems are not caused by immigration. They are caused by AUSTERITY. Immigrants are the scapegoats the government uses to shift the blame for the impacts of austerity.

Magnificent performance from @GeorgeMonbiot

These few observations on 'decolonization' are what I'm going to leave while again coming off Twitter for a bit. Like many, I feel futile & desolate, even and especially in this 'pause' before ethnic cleansing recommences.

I feel the need to break down why this article has got it so, so wrong. It's central argument is we can increase migration, and embrace it, as long as we show we can have tough borders & wont let asylum seekers cross them irregularly. Sounds tempting... economist.com/leaders/2023/1…

Before our Empire of Light screenings this weekend, we're screening short film REVIVAL from photographer @roymehta2! Check out this article from The Observer on Mehta's work, which captured #Brent in the 80s & 90s. theguardian.com/artanddesign/2…

In the opening week of EMPIRE OF LIGHT, we're showing Roy Mehta's short film REVIVAL before each screening. Mehta's photography captured #Brent in the 80s and 90s. Roy will also be giving an introduction to the 5.15pm screening on January 21st! 🎟️:bit.ly/3W0A2MZ

Tonight, we are together at @ConwayHall (and online!) to reflect on the crises shaping our world and what we must do together to nurture and sustain ongoing resistance. Follow this 🧵to hear more from @StuartHallFdn keynote speaker Arundhati Roy ❤️‍🔥 and our ED @khankfarza

Great to see this exhibition at the extraordinary Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. Well worth a visit. @GlasgowGoMA galleryofmodernart.blog/portfolio/afro…

🗓 BOOK NOW: The Stuart Hall Foundation is delighted to welcome writer Arundhati Roy to our Annual Autumn Keynote event @ 7pm on 30/09/22 entitled, Things that Can and Cannot be Said: The dismantling of the world as we knew it Sponsored by @ConwayHall stuarthallfoundation.org/events/arundha…

New portraits that I have made of footballers in Brent in The Guardian. Lovely to work with such inspiring people. theguardian.com/football/galle…

Please sign, forward and support! change.org/p/create-a-uk-…

Congratulations Lionesses! London & the country couldn’t be more proud of the team today. You’ve made history, inspired the next generation & treated us to an amazing summer of sport 🏆⚽️ #WEURO2022 #ItsComingHome #ENG