Celebrating RCA Alumnae for Black History Month 2019

Taking a lead from the Black History Month Magazine 2019, which focuses on the role and contributions of Black Women in the UK, this Black History Month, RCA Stories is celebrating the achievements and successes of our Black alumnae. From the well established leaders in their fields, to ones to watch and future greats, read on to find out more about the contributions, achievements and successes of RCA alumnae.

Lubaina Himid (MA Cultural History, 1984)

A key figure of the Black Arts Movement, Lubaina Himid’s work has consistently foregrounded the contribution of African diaspora to Western culture. Her paintings, prints, drawings and installations reference the slave industry and its legacies, and address the hidden and neglected cultural contribution made by real but forgotten people. 

Lubaina was appointed MBE in June 2010 for services to black women's art and was made a CBE in December 2018 for services to art. In 2017, she won the Turner Prize for several projects that addressed pertinent questions of personal and political identity, including her solo exhibition Lubaina Himid: Invisible Strategies at Modern Art Oxford and Navigation Charts at Spike Island in Bristol.

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Magdalene Odundo (MA Ceramics, 1982)

Magdalene Odundo moved to England in 1971 to train as a graphic designer however, it was here that she discovered ceramics. Magdalene received an OBE in 2008 in recognition of her contribution to education and the arts. The same year, she also received the African Art Recognition Award from Detroit Institute of Art. 

This year, an exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield (which is now on display at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, Norwich) showcased more than 50 of Odundo’s hand-built and hand-burnished vessels alongside a large collection of ceramics, photographs, paintings, textiles and sculptures that have influenced her during her 40-year career.

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Helen Cammock (MA Photography, 2011)

Prior to her artistic career, Helen Cammock worked as a social worker for 10 years and her practice has grown out of this experience working with people and an awareness of collective society. Her practice incorporates a variety of media including moving image, photography, poetry, spoken word, song, printmaking and installation to explore social histories. 

In 2018 Helen won the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, which recognises women artists based in the UK. She has also been nominated for the 2019 Turner Prize for her solo exhibition The Long Note at Void Gallery, Derry (2018) a film about the history and role of women in the civil rights movement in Derry Londonderry in 1968, a period generally acknowledged to be the starting point of the Troubles.

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Anthea Hamilton (MA Painting, 2005)

Anthea Hamilton’s multimedia sculptures and large-scale installations feature prop-like objects that resemble theatrical stages or film sets and engage visitors with narratives that incorporate references from art, fashion, design and cinema. Anthea was shortlisted for the 2016 Turner Prize and in 2017 became the first black woman to be awarded a commission to create a work for Tate Britain's Duveen Galleries. Over six months, her work The Squash inhabited Tate Britain – in which a lone performer dressed in a squash costume, performed within a pristine white tiled environment. 

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Catherine Anyango Grünewald (MA Visual Communication, 2006)

Catherine Anyango Grünewald uses film, sculpture, drawing and mise-en-scene devices to produce work which looks at physical or domestic environments that are disrupted by emotional, intangible phenomena. She was awarded the 2019 Art on Paper Navigator Prize – an international prize which aims to enrich the importance of paper in society. 

The democratic nature of charcoal and paper appeal to Catherine, who uses drawing to rewrite stories and events in order to expose the invisible structures of power and violence. Her graphic novel adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was named the Observer’s Graphic Novel of the Month in 2010 and has been translated into seven languages. She is a Senior Lecturer at Konstfack University having previously taught at the RCA for ten years.

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Yesomi Umolu (MA Curating Contemporary Art, 2010) 

Yesomi Umolu is Artistic Director of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial and Director and Curator of Logan Center Exhibitions at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. She is a leader in the fields of global contemporary art and spatial practice, with a focus on themes such as cultural production and globalisation; interdisciplinary practice and collaboration; and the relationship between art, learning and participation. 

Yesomi was a 2016 recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellowship and recently served on the curatorial advisory board for the United States Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale. 

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Sepake Angiama (MA Curating Contemporary Art, 2009)

Working with Yesomi, Sepake Angiama is co-curator of the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019, having previously worked as Director of Education for Manifesta 10 and Curator of Public Programmes at Turner Contemporary, Margate. As a curator and educator she is inspired by working with artists who disrupt or provoke the social sphere through action, design, dance and architecture. 

Recently, Sepake was head of Education for Documenta 14, where her project Under the Mango Tree: Sites of Learning in cooperation with ifa(Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Stuttgart, brought together artist-led social spaces, libraries, and schools seeking to unfold discourses around decolonizing education practices and build radical practices that destabilise the European canon. 

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Ng'endo Mukii (MA Animation, 2012)

Ng'endo Mukii’s graduate film Yellow Fever – a documentary-animation exploring Western influences on African women's ideals of beauty – won an impressive range of international awards in 2013, including the Silver Hugo for The Best Animated Short at the Chicago International Film Festival, Best Animation at This Is England Film Festival, Rouen, France, and Best Student Film at Underexposed Film Festival, USA.

Now a director, animator, photographer and writer with her own studio in Nairobi, Ng’endo works on short animated and 360 films commissioned by local and international organisations, including the Huffington Post and Plan International. Her first 360 film, Nairobi Berries won the Encounters Immersive Grand Prix.

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Olivia Mathurin-Essandoh (MA Visual Communication, 2017) 

Place, the mundane and overlooked narratives are key threads in Olivia Mathurin-Essandoh’s work, which is informed by a passion for mass observation and self ethnography. Through her playful illustrations and writing Olivia provides her audience with 'the shock of the familiar', while encouraging taking up of space and intergenerational discussion. She is determined to make the arts, heritage institutions and arts education more accessible and representative of their local communities. Towards this goal, over the last year she has been working with the RCA’s Community Engagement team on a series of workshops with Carney's Community centre in Battersea.

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Holly Graham (MA Print, 2014)

Much of Holly Graham’s work considers the malleable and subjective nature of individual and collective memory. She has recently been in residency at Southwark Park Galleries, where, through a series of workshops with young people and local older people she considered narratives surrounding the Mayflower’s journey across the Atlantic, using food to trace migratory routes within the wider context of expansionism and trade that fuelled European colonialism.

Alongside her studio practice, Holly leads workshops in schools, community groups and galleries. She is also Head of Artist Development at Turf Projects, the first entirely artist-run contemporary art space in Croydon, and co-runs Cypher Billboard, a project that commissions responsive site-specific artworks for a billboard in Bounds Green, London.

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Bianca Saunders (MA Fashion Menswear, 2017)

Named one to watch by the British Fashion Council and “one of London’s breakout menswear designers” by Dazed, Bianca Saunders made her fashion week debut at the SS19 LFWM shows. Bianca incorporates influences from her British-West Indian heritage into her collections, which combine elements of contemporary tailoring and elevated casual wear using drape techniques to explore modern notions of black masculinity.

Bianca’s wider practice includes research and self-documented archives to create cultural exchanges. For Black History Month 2019 Bianca curated an exhibition ‘Nearness’ at Brixton Village. Based on familiarity, the pop-up installation serves as a platform for photographers, artists and filmmakers to showcase their work, and included a collaborative display with photographer Ronan McKenzie, for her SS20 Campaign.

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Ibiye Camp (MA Architecture, 2019)

Ibiye Camp designs clothes, creates installations in urban spaces and explores public art through combining painting with performance. She is also a graduate of the RCA MA Architecture Programme, where in her graduate project ‘Data, the New Black Gold’ she explored how data has materialised in the West African landscape and the spatial consequences of its production, consumption and storage. Set in two West African cities: Lagos, Nigeria and Freetown, Sierra Leone, the project highlights the biases and conflicts of data consumption and the tensions between government, private corporations and citizens. Ibiye has exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum with Gal-Dem and in the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern curated by Claire Tancons. She will exhibit in the Sharjah Architecture Triennial.

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Nikeisha Nelson (MA Design Products, 2018)

Without adequate access to training facilities and coaches, it’s difficult for a swimmer to improve their technique. Nikeisha Nelson’s graduate project ‘V//SM’ which she showcased at the Global Grad Show in Dubai 2018 applies wearable tech to help swimmers improve their stroke. Through an app and accompanying swim top, V//SM presents a 3D motion capture of the swimmer and details areas of accuracy and inaccuracy within their movement. 

Since graduating, Nikeisha has worked for companies including Christopher Ræburn, where working alongside the Ræburn team, she designed and prototyped a bag made from a RAF helicopter emergency survival pack, which premiered as part of their AW18 collection at Men's London Fashion Week 2018.

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