Photography as participatory politics: feminist anti-racism in Rhodes Must Fall
PER project
Copyright Jacqueline Otagburuagu
In 2015, when a group of Black students founded Rhodes Must Fall Oxford, they catalysed a process of change that has challenged not only the university but the media and political establishment of the UK to reckon with racism and Britain’s empire. Even as Oriel College still refuses to take down the statue of Cecil Rhodes, RMF has led the move to overhaul curricula in several departments, documented systemic racism at Oxford, and built intersectional solidarities with feminist, trans, and indigenous movements. Through an exhibition of Jacqueline Otagburuagu’s photographs, accompanied by Tadiwa Madenga’s writing and co-curated with Athinangamso Esther Nkopo, we seek to highlight the passion and care through which RMF’s activists constructed spaces of dissent, protest, and solidarity. Otagburuagu’s photographs may be familiar to viewers from social media, where they circulated widely, typically without credit. Madenga’s narrative contextualises the photos, drawing the viewer’s eye to the relations of care and friendship, visceral feelings of passion and hope, and everyday emotional labour that undergirded what became a nationally significant social movement.
'Who Took These?', an exhibition of Jacqueline Otagburuagu’s photographs, co-curated by Tadiwa Madenga and Athinangamso Esther Nkopo, will run from the 26th October to the 9th November in the Antechapel at Wadham College, Oxford. The exhibition will be accompanied by an opening panel discussion at 15:30pm on 26th October in seminar rooms 4 and 5 at Wadham College and a closing panel at 15:30pm on the 9th November, in the same place.
Contact:
Sneha Krishnan, Associate Professor in Human Geography, Tutorial Fellow in Geography at Brasenose College
(sneha.krishnan@ouce.ox.ac.uk)
Jane Garnett, Professor in Modern History at Faculty of History, Tutor at Wadham College
(jane.garnett@history.ox.ac.uk)
Rozen Whitworth, DPhil Student, Faculty of History
