
EMPIRE LINES uncovers the unexpected, often two-way, flows of Empires through art.
Interdisciplinary thinkers use individual artworks as artefacts of imperial exchange, revealing the how and why of the monolith ‘Empire’.
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MUSIC: Combinación // The Dubbstyle.
PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.
Contemporary artist Elsa James moves through the Museum of London Docklands’ London, Sugar & Slavery gallery – and so, the missing histories of the 17th and 18th centuries – in her 2023 film, Living in the Wake of the Lust for Sugar.
In 2023, the Museum of London Docklands invited artist and activist Elsa James to make a disruptive intervention in their London, Sugar & Slavery gallery. Finding the enslaved African voice missing – from both this particular space, and museums more widely – Elsa shot a seven-minute film in shades of black and red, embedding in the space her personal, contemporary experience from the British African-Caribbean diaspora, as connected with the long history of the transatlantic slave trade.
With movement, dance, and audio, Elsa reimagines the gallery as the galley of slave ship. Talking about the toppling of statues from Edward Colston to Robert Milligan, she details who controls historical narratives and memory, and why we should reconsider the history of transatlantic slavery as the history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Elsa illuminates her neon ‘Ode to David Lammy MP’ (2022), influences from Stuart Hall to Windrush thinkers, and the parallel othering of her home base, Essex, made apparent by her research into historical Black women like Princess Dinubolu, Hester Woodley, and Mary Prince. Drawing on her work with the International Slavery Museum, we discuss the importance of local and global collaborations in platforming a plurality of voices, problems with the commercial art market, plus her interdisciplinary practice, from neon signs to performance art.
Living in the Wake of the Lust For Sugar is publicly available online, via the Museum of London Docklands website and social media.
For more about Carrie Mae Weems, listen to Barbican curator Florence Ostende on From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995–1996), on EMPIRE LINES: https://pod.link/1533637675/episode/b4e1a077367a0636c47dee51bcbbd3da
Part of EMPIRE LINES at 90, exploring the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade through contemporary art.
WITH: Elsa James, British African-Caribbean conceptual artist and activist. Born in London, she has lived in Essex since 1999; working across media, much of her current practice considers what it means to be Black in Essex today.
ART: ‘Living in the Wake of the Lust for Sugar, Elsa James (2023)’.
SOUNDS: Elsa James.
PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.
Follow EMPIRE LINES on Twitter: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936
And Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast
Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

put your qs/ideas on poster art and revolution to the #OurSophisticatedWeapon Closing Event – with co-curator Richard Gray, cooperantes (solidarity workers) from Mozambique, and me on EMPIRE LINES.
— Jelena Sofronijevic (@jelsofron) December 11, 2021
join us on the @SOAS/@BruneiGallery Zoom from 12pm today: https://t.co/ITVbxX9Bq8 pic.twitter.com/iW07PK4LsA
💬Though the artist suggests this is her reality and gaze…Rather than retelling any story from another singular perspective, #MyRealityIsDifferent pluralises the past, telling histories, not history.
— Jelena Sofronijevic (@jelsofron) October 21, 2022
read more on @MalaniNalini in my @gowithYamo review: https://t.co/XVjuGp3qkh
Featured by national museums and galleries:
Discover exclusive content in our digital guide free on @bbgconnects with wxclusive video content, a Devotional Collection playlist and @jelsofron's EMPIRE LINES + interviews with @SabinaDesir & @CEvaristoBoyce
— Turner Contemporary (@TCMargate) March 6, 2023
Download the free app today: https://t.co/gK2CznwkF3 pic.twitter.com/Y5hMT6NCgo
Have you visited our new exhibition 'Nalini Malani: My Reality is Different' yet?
— National Gallery (@NationalGallery) March 3, 2023
If you want to find out more about Nalini Malani and our exhibition, in partnership with @Holburne, you can have a listen to @jelsofron's EMPIRE LINES podcast here: https://t.co/ABcIboRAV5
EMPIRE LINES has been installed in museums like the Turner Contemporary in Margate (03-2023), and played at live events, like safe + sound in London (04-2023):

To promote the series, I have written for the likes of Museums and Galleries Edinburgh, featured in interviews, and hosted events with Retrospect Journal (08-04-2021):
Extract from Listening to Empire: Making Podcasts with Producer Jelena Sofronijevic (08-04-2021). You can listen to the recording, or read the full interview on Retrospect Journal.
I was also interviewed for the EMPIRE LINES podcast launch for BBC Radio Shropshire.
Mid-morning on BBC Radio Shropshire with Jim Hawkins – 01-10-2020
EMPIRE LINES also features in cultural newsletters including Poltern, and print.