Critical Reflection on Tate's 'Life Between Islands' Exhibition

24 January 2024 AFR 370 Précis: “Centre. Margin. Other” This article explores how the exhibition presents Tate’s “Life Between Islands”. The exhibition has an unoriginal take on immigration, which shows the “struggle” which has been reproduced many times in other exhibitions. Moreover, Tate’s “Life Between Islands” shows the postcolonial centre/margin “dichotomy”, demonstrating power relationships. Additionally, the author focuses on how “Life Between Islands” is a “missed opportunity” and signifies more than mainstream media presents it as. For instance, poll tax protests, no social housing, and gentrification are all subjects that are glazed over, causing the exhibition to be generalized. The article mentions that there are two important points about the inattention of Carribean-British in “Life Between Islands”. The first point being, the Caribbean diaspora in British media has become inversely proportional to the disappearance of the Caribbean community and its culture in the UK. The second point is that the Caribbean in the “Life Between Islands” receive very little recognition, as there is not even a wall map or a timeline of historic events. Thus, this article recognizes the portions of exhibition that are often not recognized at all. The article states that the line of defense that some exhibitions use is to claim that there is a limit on how much artworks on display can achieve. Additionally, this claim is hindering because it misunderstands the intent of the piece, which was intended to cause cultural and societal change. In the “Life Between Islands” exhibition, only certain works from all the artists who created pieces were chosen to be displayed. Thus, the works that were displayed and selected were curated from the director, to which the article questions if the directors own visions of Carribean-Black culture is what was reflected on the exhibition. The article proceeds to claim that the exhibition is a missed opportunity and an attempt to define a narrow definition of black identity. Furthermore, this is happening because diversity is trying to take place while spaces, like exhibitions, and networks are becoming less prominent. Additionally, government funded facilities are not funding the arts which affects marginalized groups. However, the gallery, which is described as the ‘middle-man’, uses marginalized issues or people to secure government funding. As a result, the gallery has intentions of pushing their own narratives, in an empathy seeking way, to gain funding which is regressive but seen as an act of inclusivity. The article claims that the reason why institutions try to generalize the black identity is because of cultural capital. Jamaica is used as an example as they have produced reggae, dub, and ragga which created millions of sales and was used as a template for other music styles. The article attempts to make the point that music produced from Jamaica, and Jamaican culture, has been immensely appropriated and exploited. The article uses an example of how at the merchandise stand at the “Life Between Islands” sells a scarf with Jamaican vernacular designs that was priced extremely high in comparison to what it usually is, to illustrate the exploitation of Carribeans. The article ends with the author claiming that “Life Between Islands” is an organized exhibition but one that lacks socio-cultural context from the curators. Moreover, it has mainstream views of the Caribbean-British which can leave an impact on the audience. The author then discusses how some individuals may dive deeper into the exhibition and question some of the pieces that could potentially allow the Caribbean-British to tackle their problems and create their own identity. However, another possible effect of the exhibition is that society is already too normalized in the top-down representation of the Caribbean-British, resulting in their demographic to decrease while being exploited for cultural capital.