This online talk show highlights how the skills, lived experiences and creativity of people from the Caribbean have influenced and shaped British culture today. Devised to be listened to or watched, the event welcomed live participation from the audience, broadcasting British-West Indian music, poetry and visual art nationally and internationally.
Join the host, Jamz Supernova, artist Sonia E Barrett and award-winning Trinidad-born poet, novelist, academic and musician, Anthony Joseph for the celebratory launch event of Barrett's latest digital commission, Rush Me.
This event launched Rush Me a new digital experience by Sonia E Barrett curated and commissioned by UP Projects for This is Public Space. Rush Me investigates narratives including migration, belonging, identity and hybridity and builds greater empathy with the Windrush Generation by contextualising the British Government’s invitation in the 1940’s to come and help the “motherland” in new ways. It takes a long view of the myriad ways people of Caribbean descent have moved and been moved to serve British interests. Recontextualising "Windrush" in terms of both historical and contemporary movement, "rush me" is a meditation on help, need, peril and service.
This event was hosted by Jamz Supernova. Jamz is a DJ, broadcaster, label owner, A&R and podcast host who has worked with BBC RADIO 1XTRA, BBC 6MUSIC, BBC FOUR, the British Council and more.
Jamz Supernova
As a DJ Jamz weaves between Eclectic, Broken Beat, UK Funky and Global Sounds. She has graced the stages at Sonar, Parklife, All Points East, Glastonbury, Boiler Room Festival, Outlook, Kala, Lovebox, Gala, Lost Village, We Out Here, Lost & Found, Warehouse Project and is no stranger to the European circuit with regular slots away including Berlin, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Budapest, Barcelona, Porto, Paris, Amsterdam and Oslo. Jamz’ melting pot of club sounds can be heard in her monthly mix series CLUB JAMZ. Jamz has hosted DJ sets with DJ MAG and Keep Hush and had her debut RA podcast in 2021 showing her journey through DJing.
Hosting a weekly specialist show on BBC RADIO 1XTRA (winning an ARIA in 2021) which Jamz describes as “a musical journey, where you'll discover the very best in emerging alternative R&B, new-wave Jazz, leftfield electronica and Indie”. Jamz is a tastemaker and has shown many artists to radio, in doing this Jamz has confirmed her weekly Saturday daytime BBC 6MUSIC show. Jamz also graced our TVs co-hosting the music show Jazz 625 on BBC FOUR alongside Moses Boyd in October last year.
Also the host of the British Council’s weekly radio show SELECTOR, Jamz dives deep into the underground UK music scene and shares it globally in over 30 countries around the world - across Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia - to over 4 million international listeners.
In 2018 Jamz founded FUTURE BOUNCE record label and events brand, signing exciting talent from her world, including Melle Brown, Ted Jasper, Swsh, Joe Turner and Tungz, who have received media attention from Annie Mac, New Names, Mistajam Jam Hot, BBC Introducing Hot List, Music Week, Colors, Notion, Hunger and more. 2021, Following a successful series of Club focused releases, Future Bounce will be releasing a vinyl compilation in 2021. For events what began as a radio show on Reprezent Radio soon became a monthly club night at Birthday’s, Dalston in 2016. The popular parties had line ups featuring the likes of Branko, Roska, Addison Groove, Full Crate, Mina, Star Slinger, Salute, Zed Bias & more - Future Bounce is looking to reach more cities and festivals with a killer stage set up and acts to follow.
A keen agent for change, Jamz created DIY HANDBOOK - a spotlight on amazing young people building their own boss careers, highlighting women and people of colour. Originally
a radio feature, this has now become a podcast series hosted by Jamz along with some amazing guests. The first series out this year, consists of informal chats with guests around topics building a team, rejection, the power of no and ownership.
Anthony Joseph
Anthony Joseph is an award winning Trinidad-born poet, novelist, academic and musician. He is the author of four poetry collections and three novels. His 2018 novel Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award, and longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. His most recent novel is the The Frequency of Magic an experimental work of Caribbean metafiction which is part of a two year Arts Count England touring project. As a musician, he has released eight critically acclaimed albums, and in 2020 received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Composers Award. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths University and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kings College, London.
His new collection Sonnets for Albert (2022) is shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
Sonia E Barrett
Sonia E Barrett performs composites of plants, animals, elements and people to create interventions that present their objectification and commodification, she also thinks about how to change perceptions of phenomena in “nature” that are a given. The work seeks to create new questions where there was a kind of certainty that has to do with the hegemony of normative western European values. Born in the UK of Jamaican and German parentage Sonia E Barrett grew up in Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Cyprus, and the UK. She studied literature at the University of St Andrews Scotland and her MFA at Transart Institute Berlin/New York. Her work unpacks the boundaries between the determined and the determining with a focus on race and gender. She makes sculptural works so she can run her hands along the fissures and manifest strategies for multiple compatible existences and mourn. Her sculptural practice includes place making with a view to assembling communities under the threat of climate to re-claim space as well as instituting permanently. Sonia is a MacDowell fellow and has been recognised by the Premio Ora prize, NY Art-Slant showcase for sculpture and the Neo Art Prize. She has been exhibited by the National Gallery of Jamaica, 32 degrees East Gallery, Kampala, Uganda, the Heinrich Böll Institute Germany, the British Library, The Museum of Derby, and the Kunsthaus Nürnberg. Her work has been shown at a number of galleries including the OCCCA California, the NGBK Berlin, Tete Berlin, The Format Contemporary in Milan and Basel and the Rosenwald Wolf Gallery Philadelphia. Her works have been published in the International Review of African American Art, Black History 365 Journal, Kunstforum International, Protocollum, ELSE journal and the Contemporary & Platform. She is a co-initiator of the AIPCC in Bavaria.
Accessibility
We strive to make UP Projects' events accessible and inclusive to all, if you have a particular access request please email info@upprojects.com prior to the event and a member of the team will assist you. We will provide a recording with closed captions available on our YouTube following the event and can also provide transcripts upon request.
Donations
All donations raised through individual giving go directly towards our free nine-month learning and development programme, Constellations for artists, curators, producers, and practitioners active and/or interested in the expanded field of public art.
Your support will enable early-mid career practitioners to develop their practice, collaborate with others, access new networks, and contribute to the critical debate surrounding the future of public practice.
UP Projects believes in keeping events accessible to everyone and commits to turning nobody away for lack of funds. If you are unable to donate please select a free ticket and join us on the day! We recognise how injustice and personal circumstances impact people’s income and their ability to donate. We believe that there is enough for everyone when it is shared and therefore ask our attendees to give when you can, if you can!
You can donate via our support us page or directly via Eventbrite upon booking a ticket.
Credits
Rush Me by Sonia E Barrett is curated and commissioned by UP Projects for This is Public Space and is generously sponsored by Barrington Hibbert Associates and supported by Arts Council England. The commission was realised with technical development and creative assistance from Marine Renaudineau.