Inside the invisible

Memorialising Slavery and Freedom in the Life and Works of Lubaina Himid

Lubaina Himid author Celeste-Marie Bernier author Hannah Durkin author Alan Rice author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Liverpool University Press

Published:19th Nov '19

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Inside the invisible cover

Inside the Invisible provides the first examination of the work of Turner Prize-winning Black British artist and curator Professor Lubaina Himid CBE. This comprehensive volume breaks new ground by theorizing her development of an alternative visual and textual language within which to do justice to the hidden histories and untold stories of Black women, children, and men bought and sold into transatlantic slavery. For Himid, the act of forgetting within official sites of memory is indivisible from the art of remembering within an African diasporic art historical tradition. She interrogates the widespread distortion and even wholesale erasure of Black bodies and souls subjected to dehumanizing stereotypes and grotesque caricatures within western imaginaries and dominant iconographic traditions over the centuries. Creating bodies of work in which she comes to grips with the physical and psychological realities of iconic and anonymous African diasporic individuals as living breathing human beings rather than as objectified types, she bears witness not only to tragedy but to triumph. A self-appointed researcher, historian, and storyteller as well as an artist, she succeeds in seeing “inside the invisible” regarding untold narratives of Black agency and artistry by mining national archives, listening to oral stories, acknowledging art-making traditions, and revisiting autobiographical testimonies.

Reviews'An extremely significant contribution to the art historical research focused on contemporary Black British visual artists.'
Professor Earnestine Jenkins, University of Memphis
While Inside the Invisible challenges us to face painful histories and their contemporary legacies, it also celebrates the possibilities of what can be achieved by reimagining these issues through Himid’s perspective. This is an important and generous publication, essential reading for scholars seeking to reframe the study of art through the lenses of anti-racism and decoloniality.
Sabrina Rahman, Wasafiri

‘Himid’s deft ability to link her artistic and academic gifts bridges a body of information that we take for granted: cultural visibility. Her work takes the stories of black men and women who have been systematically erased and makes them raw and visually accessible. Looking through these pages makes me ask why we do not currently use art – and this book specifically – to teach history.’ Lavinya Stennett (writer and founder of The Black Curriculum), The Guardian

ISBN: 9781789620856

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

360 pages