RATIONALE
Whilst delivering BA workshops for the first 2 of my 7 years as a garment technician at LCF, I didn’t give much thought when delivering workshops through a western lens eg Jacket, Shirt, Trousers and T-shirt. Before this I spent nearly 30 years in industry designing, draping and pattern cutting as well as my own label, where colonisation never entered the conversation.
But since moving over to MA ( and especially during my PG Cert ) something in my head told me that this didn’t seem quite right and then it dawned on me. I’m British born of Indian heritage so part of me was missing and this is how many of our students might be feeling.
I don’t see that traditional workshops are enough in our teaching method at LCF and would like to suggest that a new scaffolding system based on cross-pollination will be more inclusive, make the teaching easier and give both students and teachers a vehicle to bring power to our voices.
For videos on traditional workshops, see the SharePoint site: https://artslondon.sharepoint.com/sites/LCFTech/SitePages/Shirt.aspx?web=1
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BACKGROUND – Colonisation
When I looked in a printed dictionary (“Collins English Dictionary”, 1991) for the word ‘colonisation’, it wasn’t there! The closest word was ‘colonialism’ “the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas. Also called imperialism” and this led me to realise how deep we need to go to peel back the layers of history because this definition is only 35 years old.
Being born and living in a city of nearly 10 million people, it never occurred to me that anywhere else would be different. I knew I was Hindu and brown and that other people were different but it was only as I grew up that people started telling me that certain people were good or bad. I knew that mum had been called Paki and that we were made homeless one Christmas because the landlord didn’t like the smell of our food. But like mum, I ignored them and sometimes we did things to fit in – Like mum had to wear western clothes for work because a sari might catch in a machine and I wore a school uniform. This might be why colonialism has always been a way of life for me and why I’ve always seen things through different lenses without thinking about it.
It’s not only London though. My passion for travel has taken me to 28 countries – From Zanzibar to Peru, Aruba to Croatia as well as Israel to Cambodia. I’ve felt, smelt and tasted so many cultures at so many levels from a peasant’s cottage in Ecuador to the finest private beach in Oman.
I’m as likely to go to The Barbican as I am a temple. I’ll wear a kourta as easily as jeans or enjoy Yorkshire puddings as much as dahl. I’m effectively bi-cultural by nature and from birth which gives me a huge advantage in understanding the subject because I myself am cross-pollinated!
My grandparents came from India, they used to tell me the worst thing for them was when the British granted independence to India, is that they left behind a new boundary separating India to Pakistan and Bangladesh. It was devastating when people they knew as friends became enemies and civil war broke out through in India, they had lost a lot of friends, who they used to eat, worship and pray with. They used to say yes, we know the British tried to impose the way of life but some of it was good and it meant that the cast-system was finally broken.
Franz Falon’s Black Skin, White Masks has been fascinating and gave me lots of background context from so many perspectives. I dipped into other sources, but they didn’t fit into my chain of thought. Akinsete, (2023).
“In that same decade (1990s) that I discovered Fanon, I travelled to the USA and visited three historically Black universities and colleges: Moorhouse, Spellman, and the Interdenominational Theological Centre, all of these in Atlanta, Georgia. As you can imagine, it really blew my mind that I could visit institutes of higher learning that existed for Black students and were run predominantly by Black staff. It immediately occurred to me that the African American experience culminating in these prestigious institutions was partly about replacing the enslaved black skin, white mask with a progressive revolutionary black skin, black mask experience.”
Akinsete, p9 (2023). My History is in My Skin
This is a good example how the world has changed and obviously he’s experienced showed How he felt comfortable in his surroundings, but it will make me question that if we don’t have diversity through our education we can still be colonised by seeing things through one lens
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BACKGROUND – Decolonisation means giving political independence to a country that was previously a colony.
“What I see in this picture, and what I think Fanon is actually saying in his book is that the Black man actually wants to return to the source. He wants to return to his original source, his African self. He wants to return to his original African ego; far, far away from what he has been taught about himself, that he is primitive, with no ego, or a sense of self, only instincts or an id, uninvolved or undeveloped.” Akinsete, p10 (2023). My History is in My Skin
Decolonisation is a difficult subject for me. How far back in history do I go as someone who is being born in London and has a strong Indian heritage, which one do I choose – my British heritage or my Indian heritage, this is leaving me thinking that I’m creating a new boundary in my life, as my grandparents said to me these boundaries can destroy us. As we’ve seen with the rioting in the UK during 2024.
I was perhaps unconsciously decolonising the curriculum by seeking out references that would help me understand better the Eurocentric concepts of counselling, psychotherapy, psychology and psychiatry, and how they impact the minds and lives of Black people.”…”I continually thought of the impact of duality and how this affects the identity of millions around the world. Whether on the African continent or in the diaspora, we are continuously two personalities, juggling, struggling within ourselves, with ourselves, to know our true selves.” Akinsete, p7 (2023). My History is in My Skin
If it’s only with education we are talking about decolorization does that mean we have to remove most of our books in the libraries or, as educators we need to research into others heritage is to restock our libraries, I say this because when doing the Sari project, I could only find a few books on it
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BACKGROUND – Cross-pollination
Cross-pollination is the transfer of pollen from the anthers of one flower to the stigma of another flower by the action of wind, insects, etc.
Looking at the meaning of cross-pollination in various dictionaries led to similar explanations, except in The Merriam-Webster dictionary where the second sense definition is “cross-pollination of fantasy and realism” really brought to life what it means to me. ‘cross-pollination’ Merriam-Webster, 2024.
(picture of football shirt)
Here we learn how a black-skinned man of Afro-Caribbean heritage (Rotimi Akinsete) literally wears a shirt representing the colonising country.
“As soon as this [his] workshop is finished today, I’m going to take off this shirt and I’m going to be wearing this football shirt instead. In readiness for a tiny and somewhat important football match taking place this evening. Of course, the irony will not be lost on me that I will be donning the Three Lions replica football shirt representing as you can see, England, the so-called mother country and – one of a number of teams fronting several Black footballers who have to endure being booed by their own fans.
Representing the Motherland despite being enslaved, colonised and brutalised by the same Motherland in the not-too-distant past, and in the here and now. For me, Black Skin, White Masks isn’t just about individuals, it’s also about the relationship between nations.”
If we looked at this through the method of cross-pollination, it wouldn’t feel ironic, for him but more of his natural self, allowing him to have choices about his own identity – This is what I meant when I asked about how far back do we need to go.
We are teaching in the UK and we can’t always know all about the history of our students and through our workshops they have the chance to tell without being put on the spot.
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LOOKING FORWARD – Moving from decolonisation to cross-pollination
I see decolonisation as being complicated because if we take everything back to its original layer and remove history, we will forget what history has done to us.
Social justice has moved on and our workshops need to do the same. They need to evolve to reflect the diversity of students and staff. This diversity is more than heritage, it includes gender, neurodiversity, socio-economics, faith and origin.
However, there is still something to be learnt from the more usual definitions of pollination and here I remembered my trip to Galapagos and how Darwin discovered there that life evolves to adapt to its environment and left undisturbed becomes more refined. However, when mankind colonised the islands they brought rats with them which threatened to decimate the indigenous rat species. Sailors found fresh meat in the turtles and they too headed toward extinction. The clocks couldn’t be turned back on what had happened, the islands couldn’t be decolonised, but the impact could be mitigated through time.
And it’s the same in the way we teach our workshops – We can’t ignore colonisation, nor can we undo it, but we can peel back the layers of history, acknowledge what has taken place and see the world from an inclusive perspective and this is what I see the term ‘cross-pollination’ means.
Cross-pollination is a vehicle for free expression and inclusivity at every stage of our workshops from planning, implementation, participation through to outcomes. We can use the best bits, take into account the bad bits and create something which brings something new into being. I believe that we need this expression in our teaching because it is more representative of our need to provide a more positive and useful approach to only seeing the world through a western eye.
It stimulates alternative thinking through mixing sources chosen by both the students and the teaching team.
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Reference List
Akinsete, Rotimi. (2023). ‘My history is in my skin,’ Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks Interpretations, Art & Pedagogy, pp. 7-13. 20th June 2021 (online). University of Arts. (Accessed: September 2024 ) Available at Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, Interpretations, Art and Pedagogy.
Collins English Dictionary (London: Collins, 1991)
Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2024. (Accessed September 2024)
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