The Essay - Malika Booker
The city of Leeds seen through public art past, present and future. In this edition, Malika Booker considers an architectural sculptural frieze located on Abtech House, 18 Park Row, Leeds (formerly West Riding Union Buildings) created in 1900 by the stonemason and sculptor Joseph Thewlis. The sculpture depicts emblematic figures related to Leeds commerce at the time, linked to the abundance of textile industry and mills in Yorkshire and Leeds.
As a member of the Caribbean community living in Chapeltown, she is particularly interested in the Minerva Goddess presiding over these figures, as well as the figures depicting the bank's relationship with empire. She is caught by the multicultural portrayal of figures representing different aspects of Industry and the world, but of particular interest is the depiction of an enslaved African figure lifting and bending over bales of cotton.
This lyrically poetic essay considers the changing visual, political, social and environmental changes that the sculptural frieze has witnessed and the ways in which the world has moved away from this depiction of black bodies.
Malika is and international writer, double winner of Forward Prize for Poetry and Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow at University of Leeds.
Writer/reader, Malika Booker Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly Thomas
Contains some historical racial terminology.
Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
Published on Thursday, 14th December 2023.
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