Launch of 'Public Library UK Vol 1, After Kenneth Little' by Richard Hylton

Centre for African Studies and School of Arts, SOAS

An evening of listening and discussion  with Richard Hylton, joined by Tom Denman, Paul Nataraj and Dr Althea-Maria Rivas.

SOAS University of London

To mark the launch of Public Library UK Vol 1, After Kenneth Little, a limited edition spoken-word double vinyl LP about immigration and its legacies in Britain. Richard Hylton will be joined by Dr Althea-Maria Rivas (chair), Tom Denman (art critic) and Paul Nataraj (artist) to discuss their responses to the project.Thursday 16 January 2025, 6.30-8.30pm SOAS, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre (BGLT), London WC1H 0XGPublic Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little is a participatory spoken-word work. Thirty-seven volunteers read consecutive excerpts from the American sociologist Leonard Bloom's introduction to the 1972 edition of Kenneth Little’s Negroes in Britain: A Study of Racial Relations in English Society. Bloom argued that Little's book brought hitherto unseen nuance to the study of immigration. It was originally published by Routledge &amp; Kegan Paul in 1948, a year now fabled as the beginning of the 'Windrush generation'. Little's study, however, focused on the impact of immigration on Butetown, the dock area of Cardiff, Wales during the interwar years of the twentieth century. Nicknamed Tiger Bay, this district was noted for its multiethnic population, drawn from Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, and for being the epicentre of notorious race riots in 1919.With the practice of anthropological field recordings in mind, Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little considers, not histories of societies and cultures of faraway people and faraway lands, but instead those closer to home. Drawing from a formidable archive of literature, Public Library UK Vol I excavates histories, terminologies, and observations which are both archaic and prescient. Perennially reprised, centuries old anxieties around immigration and race relations, often odious and futile, are given new perspectives here. In Public Library UK Vol I the non-professional readers deliver passages modulated by varying accents and intonations. Although not visible, they are as much the subject of the work as the words they utter."Listening to the recordings of plural voices reading Bloom’s introduction to Little's book with diverse accents, stutters, pauses and breaths, we come to pause and stutter our own normative understandings of history and chronology, collapsing the order of dates this text started with. We come to hear, as in sense, the infrastructure and ideologies of this purposeful system of conflict." – Salomé Voegelin, Sonic Fictions Of Unsettlement"Choosing the Introduction to the republished 1972 edition of Negroes in Britain for this fascinating project is of central importance. Black Britain was being brought into existence by the British-born or raised children of the Windrush generation, emerging into adolescence as young Black Britons in the early 1970s." – Eddie Chambers, Public Library: Some Considerations

About Devised and produced by Richard Hylton, Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little is a limited-edition work, produced as two 140g vinyl LPs presented in an extensively illustrated gatefold design including illuminating liner notes, Public Library: Some Considerations by Eddie Chambers and, Sonic Fictions of Unsettlement by Salomé Voegelin. Eddie Chambers is David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professor in Art History, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin, and Salomé Voegelin is Professor of Sound at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, UK.The album’s pressing was made possible through a Research Culture Award from SOAS. Readers Simon Aeppli Elizabeth Baxter David Blackmore Katherine Boxall Jim Burbidge Judy Campion Dal Chodha Ellie Doggett Maren Hahnfeld Simon Harper Paula Harris Stuart Hilton Richard Hylton Kay Hylton Sashi Kahlon Victoria Kelley Alison Manning Lisa Moore Saima Mustaq Simon Olding Philip Osborne Chrissie Ralph Jeremy Ralph Elle Reynolds Laura Rowe Kate Street Ivy Tessmann Mia Thurnhill Reuben Thurnhill Urjuan Toosy Ellie Turner Emmanuelle Waeckerle Fiona White James Wright Production Devised, Produced and Recorded: Richard Hylton Sound Editing: Oliver Schmidt Photoshop Images: Reuben Thurnhill Design: Urjuan Toosy

To Buy Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little, 2024 is available to purchase from <a href="https://www.publiclibrary.uk/" title="https://www.publiclibrary.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">www.publiclibrary.uk</a> for £55 (P&amp;P included for UK), International shipping fees apply. For more information please contact: <a href="mailto:public@publiclibrary.uk" title="mailto:public@publiclibrary.uk" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">public@publiclibrary.uk</a> About Richard Hylton was born in London, England. In 2018, he was awarded a PhD in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London. Working as a lecturer, writer and artist, his current activities involve researching various aspects of contemporary art practice and display within the international arena. His writing has featured in various publications and journals in Britain and the US. He is a lecturer in contemporary art at SOAS, London and his new book Donald Rodney: Art, Race and the Body Politic will be published by Bloomsbury in 2025.Tom Denman is a freelance art critic based in London. His writing has appeared in Art Monthly, Art Journal, ArtReview, Burlington Contemporary, e-flux Criticism and Studio International, among other magazines.Paul Nataraj is an audio maker, researcher and lecturer from Blackburn in Lancashire. He is a Visiting Fellow with the Migrant Memory and Post Colonial Imagination project at Loughborough University. His work explores diaspora, identity, musical materiality, memory, how our relationship with listening and the listened to, changes over time. His work is currently being shown as part of the major national touring show Jerwood Survey III, he has been awarded a commission with the 'Contested Desires: Constructive Dialogues' project, and his latest chapter is published in the book 'Sonic Faction: Audio Essay as Medium and Method' out now on Urbanomic.Dr Althea-Maria Rivas is a Senior Lecturer, Global Development, Peace and Conflict in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS. Her research draws upon critical, black feminist and decolonial frameworks to explore debates in the field of conflict, peace and development.

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Launch of 'Public Library UK Vol 1, After Kenneth Little' by Richard Hylton

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