In May 2011 Kaye Whiteman wrote an article in these pages called “Saving the Africa Centre”. The title was taken from a campaign being waged at the time supported by those who feared that the historic venue in London’s King Street, Covent Garden was going to close, with the loss of an important part of the African experience in the British capital. As a Trustee of the Centre, he argued that although its heritage was vital, the Trustees felt that the King Street building was no longer fit for purpose, and that the Centre needed a new vision for the 21st century. Here, as it is about to embark on the adventure of leaving its home behind, he looks at the Centre’s future.
The Piazza in Covent Garden is one of London’s atmospheric open-air venues, with the ghosts of the old fruit and vegetable market ever present, and the shadow of the Royal Opera House looming large. The Africa Centre used to make much of the fact that it was once a banana warehouse. It was thus appropriate that, as it bows out of this particular locality, the present owners of much of the area’s real estate (CapCo) should have made it possible for the Centre, for the first time in its history of nearly 50 years, to have its own Africa Day in the Piazza.
This took the form of an Africa Centre Summer Festival on 3 August, which is planned to be an annual feature, even when the King Street building has closed its doors. It was an innovative way of demonstrating that the Centre did not need to be confined within the walls of a particular structure, and was thus a deeply symbolic day.
The event had a number of side attractions in the Centre itself (an exhibition of art works alongside the opening of Zoë’s Ghana kitchen in the Centre’s shop-front) as well as African stalls in the east piazza.
There were also film screenings and photography (the latter on a screen in Covent Garden station), but the central attraction was a stage outside the portico of St Paul’s church, where there was continuous performance from early afternoon to well into the evening. Beginning with Tunde Jegede’s Griot’s Tale (“stories of memory, loss, sacrifice and redemption” by way of mixed performance arts), the show continued through a number of musical turns including the punchy Wale Ojo and the Kalakuta Express and the excellent “masters of Soukous” from Congo – Kasai Masai. The performance was interspersed with catwalk shows from the 2013 collections of London Fashion Week that had had good publicity during the preceding week.
By evening the piazza was packed with more than 5,000 people for the performance by two stars from Nigeria – Nneka and DJ Edu, as well as the unusual Middle Eastern fusion band, Celloman. The whole festival was warmly received by those attending. As the celebrated artist/sculptor Yinka
This took the form of an Africa Centre Summer Festival on 3 August, which is planned to be an annual feature, even when the King Street building has closed its doors. It was an innovative way of demonstrating that the Centre did not need to be confined within the walls of a particular structure, and was thus a deeply symbolic day.
The event had a number of side attractions in the Centre itself (an exhibition of art works alongside the opening of Zoë’s Ghana kitchen in the Centre’s shop-front) as well as African stalls in the east piazza.
There were also film screenings and photography (the latter on a screen in Covent Garden station), but the central attraction was a stage outside the portico of St Paul’s church, where there was continuous performance from early afternoon to well into the evening. Beginning with Tunde Jegede’s Griot’s Tale (“stories of memory, loss, sacrifice and redemption” by way of mixed performance arts), the show continued through a number of musical turns including the punchy Wale Ojo and the Kalakuta Express and the excellent “masters of Soukous” from Congo – Kasai Masai. The performance was interspersed with catwalk shows from the 2013 collections of London Fashion Week that had had good publicity during the preceding week.
By evening the piazza was packed with more than 5,000 people for the performance by two stars from Nigeria – Nneka and DJ Edu, as well as the unusual Middle Eastern fusion band, Celloman. The whole festival was warmly received by those attending. As the celebrated artist/sculptor Yinka
Shonibare (he of the ship in a bottle on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square) who curated the Piazza event said later: “never be afraid to do the things you believe in”, adding that he felt the young people in the Piazza were relating to the Centre. This “Piazza bounce”, an atmosphere of rare enthusiasm generated around this event, was the starting point for several weeks of heightened, indeed almost frenetic, activity in the run-up to the historic mid-September closing of the Africa Centre doors.
In the last days of August and the first 10 days of September the Centre saw an intensive programme including several more showings of The Griot’s Tale, and shows and talks linked to the 26 August Notting Hill Carnival, which each year has a larger and larger African participation, especially from Nigeria where there are a number of partner carnivals, as in the Rivers State. Among many other events, the Centre drew on its much-publicised musical legacy with concerts involving artistes such as Soweto Kinch, Yomi Bashiru, Naija Grooves and many others, as well as a Karaoke Africa evening featuring rappers and poets. There were also discussion sessions, for example involving Chris Spring, curator of the African collection at the British Museum, and photographer and designer Hassan Hajjaj on textiles fashion and art from Africa, as well as the writer Hannah Pool on “If African fashion is cool at present, what does this really mean for African creators and designers?”
One evening lingers particularly in the mind – the seventh Africa Centre quiz night, which has become institutionalised over the past five years, with the help of Richard Morgan, a talented quiz-master from the corporate world. The excitement and interaction generated by the special exercise of brain-power involved in quizzes (combined with African food from Zoë’s Ghana kitchen) has helped maintain the Centre’s image as a social hub and unifying force in the community of the African diaspora and all those interested in Africa.
It also helped sustain the Centre in some of its recent periods of difficulty, reinforced by an increasingly diverse and buoyant programme. The atmosphere was cordial to the point of poignancy, a kind of prequel for the emotional last evening of different musical and spoken word performances on 10 September. My own feelings have been a strange combination of sadness at leaving a building where so much history has happened, from the drinks with the liberation movements in the Soweto bar in the basement, to the parade of celebrated writers, artists, musicians, thinkers and politicians who have passed through its portals. One of the merits of the 2011 campaign to ensure that the Centre was saved was that it reminded many people of the rich history of the place, and its importance in the development of multiculturalism in Britain.
The day after this last celebration of the glories of the past 49 years, removal men began to move in. The thoughts of those that have believed in the Centre began to move to the absorbing challenges of the future in reformulating its aims and objectives and developing a governance that accords with present cultural trends and social and political thinking, and adapted to present and new technologies.
At the memorial mass (also in Covent Garden) for Margaret Feeny, the Centre’s first Director (1964-78), I talked to Baroness Shirley Williams, who had been involved with the Centre in its early years. She offered the unsolicited view that what was important for the Centre was to “sustain its spirit”.
This is a deep and abiding truth that has to animate and guide the trustees who now have the difficult task of finding a new Centre that meets all present aspirations. Although in some ways these involve very different needs from the early 1960s (not least arising from an African diaspora in the UK that numbers several million), the mission of the Centre remains fundamentally the same. This derives from the extreme importance of having a focal point somewhere in the centre of London to talk of Africa, and to promote the continent in all its ramifications, as well as building on the rich historic legacy. Now that the Centre is achieving greater financial stability and looking for a sustainable future, it will be important that the 50th birthday which falls in October next year should happen in a new home and promote a clear vision of what the Centre wants to do and be. As Trustees’ Chair Oliver Andrews has said, “we are on the brink of a new era, with the Centre as a rallying point in London for a continent that is on the brink of new achievements in this century”.
In the last days of August and the first 10 days of September the Centre saw an intensive programme including several more showings of The Griot’s Tale, and shows and talks linked to the 26 August Notting Hill Carnival, which each year has a larger and larger African participation, especially from Nigeria where there are a number of partner carnivals, as in the Rivers State. Among many other events, the Centre drew on its much-publicised musical legacy with concerts involving artistes such as Soweto Kinch, Yomi Bashiru, Naija Grooves and many others, as well as a Karaoke Africa evening featuring rappers and poets. There were also discussion sessions, for example involving Chris Spring, curator of the African collection at the British Museum, and photographer and designer Hassan Hajjaj on textiles fashion and art from Africa, as well as the writer Hannah Pool on “If African fashion is cool at present, what does this really mean for African creators and designers?”
One evening lingers particularly in the mind – the seventh Africa Centre quiz night, which has become institutionalised over the past five years, with the help of Richard Morgan, a talented quiz-master from the corporate world. The excitement and interaction generated by the special exercise of brain-power involved in quizzes (combined with African food from Zoë’s Ghana kitchen) has helped maintain the Centre’s image as a social hub and unifying force in the community of the African diaspora and all those interested in Africa.
It also helped sustain the Centre in some of its recent periods of difficulty, reinforced by an increasingly diverse and buoyant programme. The atmosphere was cordial to the point of poignancy, a kind of prequel for the emotional last evening of different musical and spoken word performances on 10 September. My own feelings have been a strange combination of sadness at leaving a building where so much history has happened, from the drinks with the liberation movements in the Soweto bar in the basement, to the parade of celebrated writers, artists, musicians, thinkers and politicians who have passed through its portals. One of the merits of the 2011 campaign to ensure that the Centre was saved was that it reminded many people of the rich history of the place, and its importance in the development of multiculturalism in Britain.
The day after this last celebration of the glories of the past 49 years, removal men began to move in. The thoughts of those that have believed in the Centre began to move to the absorbing challenges of the future in reformulating its aims and objectives and developing a governance that accords with present cultural trends and social and political thinking, and adapted to present and new technologies.
At the memorial mass (also in Covent Garden) for Margaret Feeny, the Centre’s first Director (1964-78), I talked to Baroness Shirley Williams, who had been involved with the Centre in its early years. She offered the unsolicited view that what was important for the Centre was to “sustain its spirit”.
This is a deep and abiding truth that has to animate and guide the trustees who now have the difficult task of finding a new Centre that meets all present aspirations. Although in some ways these involve very different needs from the early 1960s (not least arising from an African diaspora in the UK that numbers several million), the mission of the Centre remains fundamentally the same. This derives from the extreme importance of having a focal point somewhere in the centre of London to talk of Africa, and to promote the continent in all its ramifications, as well as building on the rich historic legacy. Now that the Centre is achieving greater financial stability and looking for a sustainable future, it will be important that the 50th birthday which falls in October next year should happen in a new home and promote a clear vision of what the Centre wants to do and be. As Trustees’ Chair Oliver Andrews has said, “we are on the brink of a new era, with the Centre as a rallying point in London for a continent that is on the brink of new achievements in this century”.
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