On Saturday 19th June 2021 Birmingham Museums and The Red Earth Collective hosted ‘Windrush Culture’, an online event featuring four performances from Birmingham based artists exploring the creative legacy of the Windrush Generation. In this talk, Digbeth based, multidisciplinary artist Joyce Treasure explores the impacts of colonialism and immigration on her wide-ranging work.
Home Sweet Home_under construction was a participatory art project that looked at social meeting areas of Amsterdan Noord that have disappeared or were under threat of closure. It's a collaboration between UK based artist Joyce Treasure and KijkRuimte. The final results were exhibited through public art and the process was documented and made into a film.
The #ParallelState, is a breakaway state, a place to collectively imagine alternative solutions to life on earth. They have commissioned three artists Sam Metz, Lavz and Joyce Treasure funded by Future's Venture, to create new works that contribute to the evolving cultural landscape of a new country, hosted ‘in Bristol’ by zoom.
Breakaway State is produced in three parts. Phase one and two arrive as a performance art video piece created in May in response to a global pandemic and Black Lives Matter. The video responds to binary locations and its emerging “trap door”. The third phase arrives as a form of fictional academic writing - the month is November, and the year is 2020.
Phase three of the Breakaway State
Credits:
“Blue Sky And Yellow Sunflower ” written and performed by Susumu Yokota appears courtesy of Lo Recordings. Published by Hub 100 Publishing
Power Boost by Raphael Torres
Elsie Knight (aka aunt Elsie) through a series of tales, poetry and music draws us into the life, living room and mind of a 92 year-old Black Country Lady, spoken in original Black Country dialect - one of the last examples of early English still spoken today.
Memories of War is a documentary film funded by Award For All and made by 10 and 11-year-old children from Campsbourne Primary School, Hornsey. The film centres on an intergenerational project with elderly members from their local community. The film focuses on the older people's experiences of World War II.
Hymn 23 incorporates sensations of healing, a cathartic cleansing of the dichotomies that exist between morals and faith / personal and social - our own and those inherited. The work was produced to support my dissertation and as a site for research during my residency with Bruntwood and Grand Union. The collection was commissioned by Bruntwood to be exhibited in Manchester, 2020, but was cancelled due to Covid 19.
"I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter... I am she whose wedding is great and I have not taken a husband... I am knowledge and ignorance... I am shameless and I am ashamed. I am strength and I am fear... I am foolish and I am wise... I am godless, and I am one whose God is great."
Thunder, Perfect Mind / Daughters of The Dust
Each year 150 children take part in Holocaust Memorial Day, funded by Lewisham council. Joyce Treasure was employed as video artists to create a 4-day workshop to commemorate the Holocaust. Working with drama specialist, performance poet, artists, and dance specialist, she collated complimentary images and footage filmed during workshops to support performances during the Holocaust Memorial Day at Catford theatre in Lewisham.
Each year 150 children take part in Holocaust Memorial Day, funded by Lewisham council. Joyce Treasure was employed as video artists, to film a 1.5-day workshop over a period of seven weeks to commemorate the Holocaust. Year 6 children looked at diaries written by a Jamaican child who immigrated to England during the 1940s. The young people adopted the role of ‘investigators’ and used a range of drama methods to unravel her story.
One of five winners of Bollywood shorts, Joyce Treasure tells the story of a 10-year-old girl’s desire to own a retro Raleigh Chopper bike that is expressed through song and dance.
Directed by Esther May - Campbell
Written by Joyce Treasure
Produced by Justin Edgar
Funded by BBC and ABI
Welcome to England is a documentary film funded by Awards For All and made by 10 and 11-year-old children from Middle Row Primary School. The film centres on an intergenerational project with older African and Caribbean people from the Pepper Pot Day Centre under the Westway, W10. The film focuses on the older people's experiences of moving to England, and helping to shape their communities.