Uprising & Resistance

Creative writing, Partnership

“As much as violence, brutality and dehumanizing conditions were ever-present aboard slave ships, so was resistance to that inhumanity. Kidnapped and enslaved people fought against their capture and enslavement constantly. It is estimated that as many as one in ten or even one in five slaving ships experienced a significant insurrection during the voyage from the coasts of Africa to the Americas. While we know that they occurred we have little documentary evidence of what transpired. Despite unimaginable odds people resisted the conditions of their commodification at every turn. We need poetry and art to give life and meaning to these moments where historical evidence cannot.”

– Dr. Alexandre White, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University Department of Sociology and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

With partners Ink Sweat & Tears Press, Johns Hopkins University and Black Beyond Data, and as part of a research collaboration with Lloyd’s, Spread the Word is launching Uprising & Resistance, a project which looks to use poetry and visual art to respond to archival silences surrounding slavery in Early Modern London.

Running between approximately 1526 and 1867, the transatlantic trade in enslaved people kidnapped, trafficked and subjugated people from across Africa as both property and unfree labour. This trade shaped our City, and many institutions directly and indirectly benefited from the abusive, unpaid labour upon which this so-called trade was based.

Investigating this heritage, Johns Hopkins University and Black Beyond Data are examining the Collection of Lloyd’s insurance market to investigate its direct involvement in slavery and in associated business practices profiting from slavery.

Taking this historical research as a starting point, Uprising & Resistance will commission poets and visual artists to respond to these challenging, traumatic and problematic archives, as well as the surrounding silences that they don’t record.

Leading the project are poets Remi Graves and Keith Jarrett; and artist Jess Nash.

Remi Graves, lead poet, said:

“I’m at once excited and apprehensive about diving into the archive. Whose stories will I come across? Whose silences will reverberate through the research? I look forward to embarking on this work alongside Keith and Jess, and hope we are able to do justice to the presences – and absences – we encounter there.”

Keith Jarrett, lead poet, said:

“It feels especially vital now to confront the cruelty and complexity of our history – and, indeed, our present. There’s so much buried in the archive, hidden in plain sight! There’s also so much potential to capture this in poetry, through language. I’m honoured to be a part of this project, responding to this history and its ongoing legacy.”

Jess Nash, lead artist, said:

“I’m always really excited by the idea of re-learning history and finding engaging ways of presenting what I’ve learnt. So I’m very much looking forward to starting this project, working alongside the other creatives and learning some home truths.”

Through an open call, writers and artists Courtney Conrad, malakaï seargeant and Levi Naidu-Mitchell were selected to be part of the creative team.

The creative work produced by the writers, poets and artists will be published in a project anthology edited by Gboyega Odubanjo and published by Ink Sweat & Tears Press in March 2023.

Artists, Academics, Publishers

Remi Graves

Lead Poet

Remi Graves

Lead Poet

Remi Graves is a London based poet and drummer. A former Barbican Young Poet, Remi’s work has been commissioned by St Paul’s Cathedral, Barbican and BBC Radio 4. Remi has taught at The Poetry School and performed at Cheltenham Literature Festival, Tate Modern and more. Remi’s debut pamphlet with your chest will be published by Fourteen Poems in September 2022.
Keith Jarrett

Lead Poet

Keith Jarrett

Lead Poet

Dr. Keith Jarrett’s work explores Caribbean British identity, religion and sexuality. A multiple poetry slam champion, he was selected for the International Literary Showcase as one of 10 outstanding LGBT writers in the UK. His poem, ‘From the Log Book’, was projected onto St. Paul’s Cathedral and broadcast as a commemorative installation. His play, Safest Spot in Town, was performed at the Old Vic and aired on BBC Four. Selah, his poetry collection, was published in 2017. Keith teaches at NYU in London and is completing his debut novel.

Photo credit: Naomi Woddis
Jess Nash

Lead Artist

Jess Nash

Lead Artist

Jess Nash is an illustrator currently based in the South East. She enjoys making work based on her love for culture and social commentary. She also really enjoys exploring the idea of art and education, and how the former informs the latter.
Dr. Alexandre White

Lead Academic

Dr. Alexandre White

Lead Academic

Alexandre White, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Johns Hopkins, Department of Sociology. He is jointly affiliated with the Department of the History of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine and is an Associate Director for the Center For Medical Humanities and Social Medicine at Johns Hopkins. He is also a Co-Primary Investigator on Black Beyond Data, a Mellon Funded project in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University.
Gboyega Odubanjo

Anthology Editor

Gboyega Odubanjo

Anthology Editor

Gboyega Odubanjo was born and raised in east London. He is an editor of bath magg and the author of two poetry pamphlets, While I Yet Live (Bad Betty Press, 2019) and Aunty Uncle Poems (Smith|Doorstop, 2021).
Ink, Sweat and Tears

Project Publisher

Ink, Sweat and Tears

Project Publisher

Ink Sweat & Tears is an online poetry and prose web zine run by Kate Birch and edited by the poet Helen Ivory with a small print publishing arm. IS&T Press pamphlet The Red and Yellow Nothing by Jay Bernard, in part ‘an inquiry into the idea of blackness in Europe before it became synonymous with a less romantic history’, was shortlisted for the 2016 Ted Hughes Award for New Writing in Poetry. IS&T has launched a paid editing internship programme specifically geared towards writers and poets of colour. www.inksweatandtears.co.uk
Courtney Conrad

Poet

Courtney Conrad

Poet

Courtney Conrad is a Jamaican poet. She is an Eric Gregory Award winner, Bridport Prize Young Writers Award recipient and has been shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize, Manchester Poetry Prize and Oxford Brookes International Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in Magma Poetry, Poetry Wales, The White Review, Stand Magazine, Bath Magg and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. Her work has been anthologised by Anamot Press, Re.creation, Peekash Press, Bad Betty Press and Flipped Eye Press. She is an alumna of The London Library Emerging Writers Programme, Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, Barbican Young Poets, Obsidian Foundation and Roundhouse Poetry Collective.

“I believe this project is very important, we are often encouraged and forced to dismiss the full extent of our ancestors’ exploitation. I think it is vital that we continue to examine and question the past and what we have been told is the full truth/extent of our ancestors’ tragic experiences. It is important to make the understanding of their reality accessible and I think poetry does that in an impactful way.”
malakaï sergeant

malakaï sergeant

malakaï is an artist, producer and educator from pre-gentrified Hackney, London. Led by curiosity and care, malakaï works across theatre, literature and live performance – creating and interrogating through an unapologetically Afroqueer lens. A Barbican Young Poets alumnus (2016-17), malakaï has been commissioned by the likes of Apples & Snakes, Nationwide, the RSC and the Royal Court. Their creative nonfiction piece on social cleansing, ‘The Latte Drinker that Spilled the Tea’, was published in the anthology 21 Stories From Britain’s Youth (Unbound, 2019), edited by Nikesh Shukla, with excerpts republished in VICE and The Independent. malakaï is co-creative director of literary arts organisation BORN::FREE, and remains passionate about expanding the canon of Afro-diasporic writing across its forms. They are currently undertaking an MA in Black British Literature at Goldsmiths University of London.

“Meandering through archives is always a cathartic process for me; the revelations that emerge always seem to bring me closer to an understanding of myself, though often I find that the materials speak to wider discourses about the systematic erasure of people, narratives and the burying of uncomfortable truths. I’m curious to see what’s revealed to me in this project, and collaborating interdisciplinary to birth new truths.”
Levi Naidu-Mitchell

Levi Naidu-Mitchell

Levi Naidu-Mitchell is an interdisciplinary artist, currently based in West London. Her practice centres around the Carnivalesque, its dynamism as an artistic medium and the plethora of ways it can be translated as a tool for positive elevation. Workshop facilitation, site specific projects and collaboration are all fundamental to her creations and she deems it essential to work intergenerationally, always considering the legacies that we produce through our art.

“This project is an incredible opportunity to explore a pertinent void; through our collective response to this archive I am intrigued to begin a journey of filling silences, with voices that can hopefully translate, permeate and further shed light on so much that has been kept in the dark.”

Read the Uprising & Resistance Anthology

Uprising & Resistance is a series of commissioned poetry and visual art responding to academic research from John Hopkins University and Black Beyond Data into the archives of Lloyd’s insurance market, which sheds light on the critical roles that City of London merchants, financiers and underwriters played in the British trans-Atlantic slave trade.

With partners Ink Sweat & Tears Press, Johns Hopkins University and Black Beyond Data, and as part of a research collaboration with Lloyd’s, Spread the Word ran the Uprising and Resistance project from October 2022 to March 2023.

Taking this historical research as a starting point, poets and visual artists were commissioned to respond to these challenging, traumatic and problematic archives, as well as the surrounding silences that they don’t record.

The Uprising and Resistance project anthology features creative work by poets Remi Graves, Keith Jarrett, Courtney Conrad and malakaï sergeant, and artists Jess Nash and Levi Naidu-Mitchell.

Image (C) Jess Nash

Edited by Gboyega Odubanjo, Uprising and Resistance was published by Ink Sweat & Tears Press in March 2023.

Project Partners

Uprising & Resistance is managed by Spread the Word and the project publisher is Ink Sweat & Tears Press. It is based on their 2021 collaboration Runaways London, working with the University of Glasgow’s Runaway Slaves in Britain project.

Uprising & Resistance is responding to work by Johns Hopkins University and Black Beyond Data who are undertaking a research collaboration with Lloyd’s. It is independent of Lloyd’s and is funded by the Mellon Foundation.

Photo of Jess Nash, credit Mike Palmer