Artist Sonia E. Barrett takes European colonial tools, instrumental in creating colonial power, and reconfigures them to do the cultural work they disrupted.

In the Maplective exhibition, artist Sonia E. Barrett takes European tools, instrumental in creating colonial power, and reconfigures them to do the cultural work they disrupted. Colonial Maps, Desks and Cameras are reimagined to make tools that draw on pre-colonial cultural instruments.

The map-lective is a collective of black and brown women, taking techniques of personal care embedded in black communities and using them to deal with maps. In dread-locking or braiding the map, they developed their first work (pictured), creating a space for a new understanding of maps and the unravelling of colonial power.

Through sculpture, discussion and performance, Sonia invites us to respond to this work along with two works from newly formed collective 'Tool Breakers Corp' (TBC) - to co-create a new sculpture that reframes the question, ‘What was here before?’

The exhibition is a starting point for a further residency that reflects on using sculpture to do meaningful cultural work. Hosting Sonia is about extending invitations to women to gather and think about things like time, space, geography and the built environment.

Free

Opening hours

10am -6 pm

Location:

UCL Urban Room

UCL, London, E20 2AF

Text and pictures, copyright ucl urban room and the artist