In the seventh episode of Platforming Artists, Shivaike speaks to Andi Burton Marsh about her experiences studying Classics at Oxford as a state-educated Black woman, her thoughts on decolonising the subject and her work in outreach and access.
Shivaike meets with Theophina in the sixth episode of Platforming Artists to discuss her poetry and filmmaking work, the process of founding Onyx magazine, and her thoughts on how we should approach the 2020 protests and anti-racist activism.
In one of the more bizarre meetings I’ve had with potential funders, I was told that Khameleon was not presenting itself as ‘anti-racist’ enough. I don’t intend to speak much about what they considered ‘anti-racist’, and I’m sure it was some buzzword they were using to make sure they were filling whatever quota their funding was required to fill. Important to note though is that it was nothing to do with who we were, what we were doing, or our team. It was simply that we were not ‘presenting’ as anti-racist enough for them.
I started lockdown with a string of cancelled jobs… A three-week catalogue shoot, an awards ceremony, Graduate Fashion Week – all gone. I, like most people in artistic industries, felt a deep sense of catastrophe, and then I spiralled. All those people who, for years, had told me – don’t go into the arts, there is no security, it doesn’t pay enough, you’ll end up unemployed; it seemed they’d all been proven right.
