The work of making racial justice a reality must be rooted in community – in our individual and collective experiences, hopes and contributions. Create Not Destroy’s design was created in response to dialogue and workshops with local communities.

My immediate intention for the globe design was to create an image that was stark and bold with questions for the viewer to ponder and consider about the ramification of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans and its damning legacy. 

I wanted to reference the graphic nature of poster art and protest art, so in my piece I have painted a protest. On the placards the protesters hold I added information and comments about the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans. I also wanted to relate the historical struggle for abolition to our struggles today for equality and justice. 

As I engaged with the community in Birmingham in preparing this work, I wanted to represent their feeling of loss but also of unity.

Based in London and the West Midlands with history steeped in early London graffiti art culture and graphic design. Create Not Destroy specialises in Videography, Photography, Mural Art and Design.

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Tamika's design responds to the theme ‘Abolition & Emancipation’, which shares the story of the campaign for abolition, its key events, heroes and allies. It also lays bare the full, messy motivations and process of abolition, which were not as pure as often represented.

The Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans is an abstract concept for most of the world. Macro concepts such as “Africa” and “the West” are frequently used loosely in conversation.

The British, having established a system for slaver compensation prior to emancipation, kept painstakingly detailed records of the enslaved who were displaced to their colonial dependencies. For those of us in post-colonial Caribbean countries, the registers of the enslaved make the experience much more micro; individual details of the enslaved in our respective countries is quantifiable, even if only for a short space of time. 

This globe design superimposes a snapshot of the register of enslaved people from Golden Grove plantation in Cat Island in the Bahamas from 1822, alongside some of the earliest photographs of the colonial Bahamas by J.F.Coonley (1889) and William Henry Jackson (1905) from the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas’ National Collection. 

It contains the names of Charlotte: an enslaved woman who, based upon archival records, played a large part in the uprising of enslaved people at Golden Grove in 1831 – and who made several attempts on the lives of her slavers – as well as her children, William and Guy. 

The advent of photography on the heels of the end of apprenticeship in British colonies contributed to a purposely skewed and romanticised representation of people and place. But the registers of the enslaved take us closer to truths surrounding the conditions of their existence – one of the most glaring is that slavers truly regarded them simply as chattel.

Tamika is a documentarian and multimedia visual artist. A Bahamian native, Tamika’s work examines the complexities of living in a place shrouded in tourism’s ideal during the age of climate concerns. 

Emphasising the importance of Bahamian cultural identity for cultural preservation, Tamika documents aspects of Bahamian life not curated for tourist consumption to intervene in the historical archive. This work counters the widely held paradisiacal view of the Caribbean, the origins of which arose post-emancipation through a controlled, systematic visual framing and commodification of the tropics.

https://www.tamikagalanis.com

Gayani's design responds to the theme ‘A Complex Triangle’, which explores the complexity of Britain’s relationship with Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean across generations, and the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans on the UK’s role and reputation in the world.

Much ancient knowledge about the healthgiving and healing power of plants comes from Africa. This knowledge was passed on from generation to generation, from continent to continent, to enable people to heal, survive and even connect with the sacred. The history of these plants that are now known and grown throughout the world is entwined with the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans.

If the enslaved became ill in the horrendous conditions on the ships that transported them from Africa to the Americas, they would not receive medical treatment and risked being abandoned to the sea – thrown overboard – even before they died. Knowing this, the enslaved learned to look after their health by hiding medicinal leaves and seeds in their clothes or hair, to which that they could add to water or chew on to get better on the voyage.

My globe shows many of these plants and flowers. Coca from the kola nut – which acted as a sedative; cannabis sticks and leaves which were bitten or chewed when ill, and the aloe vera leaf which could be bitten to satiate feelings of hunger when there was no food. 

Ocra and bitter melon all come from Africa and are still today used as herbal medicines worldwide. The eggplant – also originally from Africa – has medicinal properties and is now grown all over the world in hybrid species. The peacock flower is actually very tiny, but its impact in the Caribbean is very large – it is still drunk regularly to maintain and improve health – so it is shown much enlarged on my globe. Pods from the cotton bushes, one of the most profitable crops produced by enslaved labour in America, are also included - raw cotton was exported to be processed in Britain and then sold all over the world. 

The background of the globe is sugar cane; not native to  Africa but grown in the Caribbean with enslaved labour and this is symbolised by the chains amongst the plants. 

In modern societies, our access to medicine is often restricted by corporate monopolies – we have lost touch with these natural and ancient healing powers. The image of Justicea in the centre of the globe holding a very unbalanced scale and without a sword – her power has been taken away – represents this.

The gold paint on top of the globe represents the natural resources of Africa’s gold and botanical treasures before it was plundered.

I have painted this globe in a naïve, childlike style as a tribute to my parents, both of whom I lost very recently: my mother was a primary school teacher and I often drew artwork for her classes, and my father was an established artists and sculptor.

Gayani lives in Birmingham and is an artist, vegan chef and ethical floral designer originally from Sri Lanka who has lived in the UK for 27 years. Her work is based on nature, especially plants and flowers. She has been a Wild in Art artist since 2017. She has been glass painting for 26 years and is preparing to have an exhibition to celebrate 4,000 pieces of glass art that are from her collection. She uses art as therapy to help others (and herself) to overcome grief and improve mental health.

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