A Riot of Our Own: A Reflection on Agency

The chapter A Riot of Our Own: A Reflection on Agency published in 'Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity (2018) is the published version of an online article, of the same name, first published in the Open Arts Journal 2014. The work is a reflection on the exhibition A Riot of Our Own, an archival narrative on the Rock Against Racism Movement (RAR) of 1976-1981. This was told through the personal archives of Syd Shelton and Ruth Gregory who were RAR (London) committee members. It was first shown in 2008 at the CHELSEA Space Gallery, London, and went on tour to venues in London and Croatia. The paper traces the tenacious pursuit of anti-racist agency of RAR that has not lost its historical relevancy in the twenty-first century. What is discussed here is the black and white dynamic of difference as unity against the black and white intolerance of difference that marked Britain. Additionally the article will explain that the need to exercise agency was the connecting thread between all those involved in curating the exhibition, a thread that stretched back to RAR’s activism during the five years of its life, to a telling of those years in 2008. The article contributes to the current rise in the study of ‘design activism’.

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