Black History Month: one work of art at a time

Léa Carrier talks to UCL’s Black and Minority Ethnic Students’ Officer Sandy Ogundele about this year’s Black History Month.

These past few months have been busy for UCL Black and Minority Ethnic Students’ Officer Sandy Ogundele. While UCL finally addressed its history of eugenics through the launch of a long awaited inquiry, the Students’ Union immersed itself in thorough preparations for the annual Black History Month in October. In early November, Pi Features met with the mastermind behind the festival programme to reflect on the success of Black History Month and the current debates surrounding educational decolonisation at UCL.

Léa: UCL celebrated this year’s Black History Month in grand style, and with a special regard for artistic expression. What role did art play in achieving the objectives of the 2019 BHM edition?

Sandy: I won’t surprise anyone by saying that art is political. However, not everyone has control over their own artistic expression. There is one particular example that comes to mind. Before time had washed away the paint, ancient greek statues were incredibly colourful. However, even after this discovery, we still associate these statues with whiteness. I wanted this Black History Month to be all about taking back our artistic expression.

Léa: And how does one achieve this?

Sandy: Essentially, I wanted to use art to engage students in new ways. For this Black History Month at UCL, there were exhibitions, films, live performances...all sorts of forms and mediums, so that students could have unique and different interactions with the pieces of art. I mean, talking about reappropriation, students could literally bring some pieces home! For example, the Black History Month flyer had information on one side, and art on the other. I wanted something that people could hang up on their wall and treasure as a conversation piece. Also, if we think about sustainability and the climate crisis, it’s a good alternative to throwing it away, like we do with most flyers.

Léa: This year’s festival theme was ‘Black Futures’. In an era characterised by the rise of social divisions and the threat of climate change, can Black and Minority Ethnics Students hope for a near future in which they would thrive rather than survive?

Sandy: For me, moving from survival to thrive is moving from scarcity to abundance, whether it is through material circumstances, personal perceptions or social environment. Don’t get me wrong, thriving doesn’t mean that you don’t have problems anymore, but it means that you have the material, psychological or social tools to respond to them. In the same way, it doesn’t mean that you don’t experience oppression anymore, but that you feel comfortable enough to express them and to still come to the world with a sense of hope, optimism and empathy. Getting out of a survival state can be hard. You are usually less open to change and struggle to properly engage with your environment, especially with your education. But I do think that this transition is feasible, and my job is precisely to support students of colour in their journey to thrive, to be the cushion or the step that will allow them to reach whatever it is that they want.

Léa: In 1826, UCL became the first university to open its doors to students of all race, religion and gender. Two centuries later, a historical investigation into the university’s history of eugenics calls into question UCL’s long claim to be a disruptive thinker. In 2019, where does UCL stand on the disruptive thinking scale?

Sandy: Everything has to be explained within a context. At the time, UCL providing a more inclusive space for students was disruptive. But I would say that now more than ever, and especially with everything happening around the eugenics inquiry, UCL has to take its claim of being a disruptive thinker very seriously. It takes a lot more than it used to for universities to transgress boundaries. Their academic research has to impact society positively, they have to change things in the field of education. I wouldn’t say that UCL has lost its disruptive thinking, but I do think that today is a great time for the university to actively tackle inclusive education and eugenics ideology, and thus go beyond what other administrations have done in the past.

Léa: Talking about past, last year an analysis of UCL marks data revealed a significant gap of 5.8% in the rate of degrees achieved between white and BME students. You’re presently working on the BME Attainment Project, a three-year project to highlight these attainment disparities. Is this something in the power of the institution?

Sandy: Definitely. We need to change our approach to this issue. There is a movement away from the language of “attainment gap” to “awarding gap”. The idea is that “attainment” locates the problem within the student, whereas “awarding” looks for structural problems. In a university like UCL, every student that comes here must meet high entry requirements. If they were nurtured to the place where they could get here, they should do the same or better. But what we see are students that are not doing as well as they should be, which makes us think that the university itself is doing something to them. We want to look at how institutions are structured and how different policies affect students, so that they can eventually receive a better education.

Lea: Is this your wish for future BME students, to enjoy the best education possible?

Sandy: Yes! I wish for BME students to be able to thrive at university. I want them to feel capable of realising their dreams and their goals, and feel supported in doing so. I want BME students at UCL to find pockets in which they feel safe - and safely challenged. I want future students to enjoy a quality, amazing and decolonized education, and to perceive UCL as a meaningful space and time in their lives. There are so many things I can wish for...but overall, I dream of a bright black future, filled with empathy and hope.

Black History Month: one work of art at a time

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