we want you to play more…
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
Born in 2020, following a year of ACE funded international research, Black Curatorial exists to push Black Curators and Creatives to play more in their practice.
How ya mean?
Well.. we create spaces, events, development programmes, immersive experiences & projects centering Black artists, curators, thought and anti-colonial praxis.
Our intention is to ignore the fart-foolishness of creating unsustainably and instead encouraging people to heal through play and collaboration.
Black Curatorial is a conceptual creative agency providing spaces for Black curators, creatives and thinkers to discuss, dissect and build curatorial projects together in a critical and accountable way.
We are fascinated by the healing power of immersive experiences and how they can reprogramme and soothe trauma. Our curatorial output prioritises this to contribute to in the pursuit of collective and collaborative healing through creativity and intentional curation.
Our vision is to curate bigger and better activations, concepts and artistic interventions that pay Black people well whilst enabling curiosity and play. Our work is both self-initiated and commissioned or in collaboration meaning we work directly with communities, brands, organisations and ourselves to dream bigger and build sustainable ecosystems for the Black imagination and freedom.
Black Curatorial was founded by Aliyah Hasinah.
“The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.”
SOME OF THE REAL G’S WHO INSPIRE OUR WORK
Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970)
Malidoma Somé
ARTECHOUSE
Suzanne Alleyne - The Neurology of Power
The Underground Gallery LA
Ousmane Sembene - Black Girl (1966)
bell hooks - Speaking Freely (1999)
Amahra Spence - Black Spatial Justice Project & YARD
Sobonfu Somé - The Spirit of Intimacy
Our Founder
With 10 years experience working across arts and culture, Aliyah Hasinah is a curator, documentary director & writer of Jamaican and Bajan heritage. Her practice has centered decolonial and international perspectives of being, loving and building Black owned knowledge dissemination systems.
Her curatorial offerings include the internationally acclaimed exhibition ‘The Past is Now’ at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (2017), This is the Gallery and the Gallery is Many Things X, Eastside Projects (2018), Decolonising the Curatorial Research Project (2019), Black Bald Girls by Ruth Sutoyé (2019), Loving (2021) and more in development.
In 2020 Aliyah founded Black Curatorial, a curatorial agency aimed at supporting Black curators across the UK, Caribbean and African Diaspora to play and experiment more within their practice.
Aliyah has also been working on her debut feature film White Teeth, tracing the origin of the climate crisis to the Caribbean colonial project. She was a Jerwood Curatorial Fellow 2022-23 and featured in ELLE Magazine’s 40 Women in Art for her work focusing on the intersection of immersive healing, prioritising Black thought and experiences and archival culture.