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peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must
08:00 & 30:00 minutes
Exploring the rich history and experiences of members of the Caribbean diaspora here in the UK, Woolford has positioned themselves in dialogue with the countryside and rural environment in stark contrast to the English tradition of landscape paintings. Rather than showcasing serene stretches of land, Woolford’s piece consists of sharp movement and raw emotion screened alongside disorienting, harshly shifting environments which are in constant motion.
Filmed in and around one of the few surviving Chartist cottages in the Midlands whose political slogan ‘Peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must’ inspired the title of the piece, Woolford is both reflecting on their personal experience of being alone in a new landscape, as well as exploring the historical potency of an early 19th Century political movement whose protests, petitions and direct action paved the way for the working classes and non land-owning population of the UK to be afforded a voice within the political system.
Woolford’s piece continues a legacy of Black British artists such as Ingrid Pollard and Harold Offeh who position the Black body within the British landscape as a form of resistance, as well as referencing the role of Jamaican Chartist Leader William Cuffay in the advancement of the movement in 1840’s England.
Commissioned by RCA CCA 2024 cohort for The Enigma of Arrival