The winners of the Black History Month art exhibition were revealed on the 25th October. The winning artwork is now available to view in the Parkside Atrium and on the third floor of the Parkside Building, alongside a live exhibition of selected works.
Black and mixed heritage students shared artwork centred around the 2021 theme ‘Proud to be’. These can also be viewed in an online exhibition that has been available from Monday 4 October and will be displayed throughout the month.
All forms of art were welcomed, including visual art, textiles, digital media, illustration, poetry/spoken word (written or recorded), dance, and more. There was a £50 voucher up for grabs for the first-place winner, while the second-place winner received £40 and third-place winner received £30. The winners of the competition are:
First place: Sonia Sogbedji, Psychology student
Sonia said: “This painting is to portray taking pride in being dark-skinned, because that alone was significantly looked down on, and I put the text in the hair because our hair has history and I’m proud of it!”
Second place: Alex Taylor, Photography student
Alex said: “This photography is one of five from a project I did looking at the fashion of the Windrush generation when they arrived in England. All clothing and props used for the photoshoot were the things my grandad wore and carried the day he arrived in England.”
Joint third place: Chidimma Benjamin, Psychology student, and Lucy Farmer, MA Visual Communication student
Chidimma said: “In the black community and society in general, colourism is very rampant. We always see light-skinned women and dark-skinned women being put against each other. In this drawing, we see two black women with different skin tones enjoying each other's company. Because at the end of the day, black is black and we should be happy in the skin we're in.”
Employability Administrator Miah Bailey said: “I would like to thank all the amazingly talented students who got involved, and to encourage both staff and students to view the live exhibition of selected works which is taking place on the third floor in Parkside, in addition to the big screen in the atrium.”
