Fishing

Fishing was originally part of a larger
installation: a cast of cutout painted
characters roaming across gallery walls.
Collectively titled Restoring the Balance,
these figures appeared within the
artist’s first retrospective exhibition
New Robes for MaShulan, a
collaboration with Maud Sulter held at
Rochdale Art Gallery in 1987. In Sulter’s
curatorial text, ‘Surveying the Scene’,
she declared: ‘The show does not stand
in isolation. Its roots are in the collective
Black struggle of our history. […] We
will remember those who are seen to
die at the hands of the state but also
bear witness and will testify to the lives
and the deaths of so many others
whose lives touch ours. The warrior
takes many guises. The educator
uses many tools.’