Reading Group What is this “Black” in Black popular culture? Rosa-Johan Uddoh

Book tickets

‘Popular culture is not the arena where we find out who we really are, the truth of experience. It is an arena that is profoundly mythic. A theatre of popular desires and fantasies. It is where we discover and play with the identifications of ourselves, where we are imagined, where we are represented, not only to the audiences out there who do not get the message, but to ourselves for the first time.’ Stuart Hall

Join interdisciplinary artist, Rosa-Johan Uddoh to read more from ‘What is this “Black” in Black popular culture?’ an essential essay by Stuart Hall first published in 1995. This reading group is part of Pink Tongue, Brown Cheek, our current exhibition exploring Uddoh’s research while in residence at the Stuart Hall Library in 2020. We will also explore a tongue-twister written by the artist, based on this essential essay. This tongue-twister forms the basis of one of the video works on show at the library – Practice Makes Perfect (Louis Brown and Rosa-Johan Uddoh, 2021), where it is used as a tool for articulating issues around education and activism, through repetition and rehearsal.

This reading group is open to all; it is a supportive and peer-led space for thinking and learning together. It is a space for constructive disagreements and critical engagement that is always based on mutual respect, interest, and care. If you have any access requirements, please email us in advance at info@iniva.org and we will do our best to accommodate them.

All texts are read together in the group, you don’t need to read them in advance.

Practice Makes Perfect, 2021, Rosa-Johan Uddoh and Louis Brown, HD video, 20 mins.