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The new Director of Iniva, Melanie Keen, reflects on those who have guided and inspired her career.

Photo of Melanie Keen

Sonia Boyce

I was a student at East Ham College of Technology in the mid-1980s doing an art foundation course when Sonia Boyce was invited, as an alumnus, to talk to us about life after art school. I identified strongly with her and her work. Like me she was an east end kid of Afro-Caribbean parentage, grappling with what was then described as the duality of identity.

Sonia provided me with the guidance and support to develop my portfolio to apply for a fine art degree. I feel incredibly fortunate that our paths have continued to cross. We are currently working together on a project led by her and a team of scholars called Black Artists and Modernism (BAM). It will have many outcomes in the next two years; the major one this year is an international conference at Tate Britain and accompanying display at Chelsea College of Art in October.

Iwona Blazwick

I decided quite quickly after graduating that I wanted to work with artists rather than be one. It took me a while to realise that I wanted to be a curator, but it was my internship with Jonathan Watkins, then Director of Chisenhale Gallery, that turned things around. He encouraged me to apply to a new MA course in curating at the Royal College of Art (RCA) – the first of its kind.

I was one of the early students. The course felt very experimental and was really exciting. Iwona Blazwick was my course tutor and was a very generous teacher. She treated me and my fellow students as equals and impressed upon me that, even when you might consider yourself established, everyone you encounter is your peer and you should respect them accordingly.

Iwona also helped me establish my own writing style and really helped to cultivate my curatorial thinking. She introduced me to people and places that I otherwise would not have encountered.

I worked with Iwona recently when I was a Senior Relationship Manager at Arts Council England. It was a tremendous learning experience to witness her work as Director of Whitechapel Gallery.

Gilane Tawadros

As part of my final MA show at the RCA, I invited Gilane Tawadros, who had recently been appointed the founding Director of Iniva, to participate in a panel discussion in which I was also participating. I remember being faintly terrified, as I hadn’t done much public speaking, and Gilane put me through my paces! Some months later she told me about a job at Chelsea College of Art as a research assistant on an archive project. I got the job and the project became the book Recordings: A Select Bibliography of Contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian British Art.

Later, Gilane employed me as Assistant Curator working with Guy Brett on the development of Li Yuan-chia’s monographic exhibition. Working with such a revered curator as Guy was a phenomenal and inspiring experience. She also gave me the opportunity to produce a major commission with Yinka Shonibare’s Diary of Victorian Dandy, as well as to manage the tour of Keith Piper’s first major show, Relocating the Remains.

Gilane had confidence in me and I am forever grateful for that, as well as for those incredible experiences working closely with important artists at significant points in their careers. She also helped shape my thinking as a professional curator. One of the many things I learned from Gilane is that, if you are in a senior position, sometimes you have to take risks if you want to develop talent and encourage greater diversity amongst arts professionals.

I’m so thrilled to be working with Gilane again in her capacity as Vice-Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation, which is collaborating with Iniva on an artist’s residency in the Stuart Hall Library in 2017.

Stuart Hall

I met the great cultural theorist Stuart Hall when I worked at Iniva in the 1990s, as he was the founding Chair of Trustees. He had been a familiar presence in my teens, as my mum did an open university degree in Sociology. She would reference him a lot as a successful import from Jamaica to the UK! Stuart has had an incredible impact on my thinking and understanding of the world.

Early in my career at Iniva, I was invited to a monthly ideas meeting convened by Gilane and Stuart with other scholars such as Sarat Maharaj participating. It was a total privilege to be in the presence of such great minds. Stuart made the abstract, complex and thorny aspects of contemporary experience thoroughly meaningful and comprehensible, mainly because he placed himself at the centre of that experience and helped you identify with him as one human to another. In my mind, he came to represent the warmth of humanity and I was devastated when he died in 2014.

I feel honoured to now run Iniva, which has a unique research centre to which Stuart kindly gave his name. The Stuart Hall Library is an international collection of over 4,000 exhibition catalogues, 3,500 monographs, 2,500 historical or theoretical works, 200 periodical titles and over 200 zines, which centres on art that takes issues such as cultural identity as its theme. The library also has an important role in documenting marginalised art histories, for example the UK Black Arts Movement of the 1980s, which are under-represented among other collections and national institutions.

Melanie Keen is Director of Iniva.
www.iniva.org

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Photo of Melanie Keen