Chronicle Spring 2022

14 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Rommi Smith: Changing the Story

In January, The North Wall mounted an important exhibition, Changing the Story: Photographs of British Life in Black and White (1917–1962) , which featured a series of striking images selected by award-winning poet, playwright, theatre-maker, librettist and academic, Dr Rommi Smith. Drawn from the TopFoto photographic archive, the images placed centre stage the often unacknowledged racial diversity of British history. ‘My history lessons did not look like this’, said Dr Smith in her introduction to the exhibition, and she explored this theme and many others in innovative workshops with pupils from the History and English Departments. We caught up with Dr Smith to find out more about the genesis of the show.

You’re the inaugural writer-in-residence for the TopFoto archive. What drew you to the TopFoto archive and why did you choose this particular selection of images for the Changing the Story exhibition? My writing residency (and indeed the roots of the Changing the Story exhibition) really began in the early spring of 2019, when I had a conversation with Flora Smith (manager-owner of the TopFoto archive). I was attending the first British American Project (BAP) writers’ retreat, which Flora was hosting. We were in the kitchen and talking about a short, sepia-toned, digital selection of TopFoto images. When I first saw the cover image of the album (a 1917 image of Caribbean Naval personnel who fought for Britain in the First World War), I immediately knew its historical and cultural significance. I wanted to see more of the archive. As a scholar of race and representation – and as a Black woman of mixed heritage – I knew that these images were replies to the absences and erasures of Black and Brown presence in the mainstream narration of British history. I suggested to Flora – in that same conversation – that a series of creatives respond to the archive, as interlocutors: I knew that I wanted to be one of them. I mooted a number of organisations and individuals, including those from within my own networks, who would be interested in and would champion the images. Our ongoing conversation and friendship continue to grow out of that first chance conversation.

Crowds of children cheering Queen Mary as she opened a new extension to Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton, October 1938