UAL celebrates Black History Month

by Fairooz Aniqa

October marked 25 years of Black History Month (BHM) in the UK. 

A celebration dedicated to promoting knowledge of black history, culture, heritage, icons, and identity; seeking to share information on historical and contemporary black contributions to British Society. 

Every year when BHM comes around there is a heated debate about the underlying legitimacy of such a celebration.

Some critics are suggesting that segregating black history to one month of the year encourages it to be ignored for the other eleven.

There is merit and truth in these arguments and at the students' union we strongly believe that black history and culture should be celebrated all year round. 

We have a number of exciting new projects and initiatives that we will be working on over the coming year to make this a reality.

However, we have also chosen to observe BHM as a great opportunity to educate and inspire positive change within the university.

As we face adverse times in higher education, with drastic education cuts and the tripling of tuition fees, there are predictions that the number of black students progressing into higher education will dwindle.

We will be using BHM as an opportunity for students to showcase their work and to encourage the university to seek new ways of making the curriculum more inclusive for all students. 

The Shades of Noir project is just one of many long-term university initiatives that we are taking part in. 

The project encourages staff and students to debate and discuss issues concerning race in creative education, practice and industry.

We will also be supporting an exhibition at LCF’s student union gallery which looks to explore ideas of black identity and culture. 

The exhibition will run from October 31 until November 11 and is created and curated entirely by UAL students.

Visit www.suarts.org/BHM for further information on the exhibition.

If you have any thoughts about what has been discussed in this article, or feel inspired to run an event or a project with the support of the students union, then please get in touch with myself, your culture and diversity officer. culture-diversity@su.arts.ac.uk.