Tag Archives: history

Ethiopian Connections: Community Engagement through Creative Arts

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Dr Peter Kellett is an architect and social anthropologist and Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture Planning and Landscape. In 2013 he went to Ethiopia as a VSO volunteer working as Visiting Professor at Addis Ababa University on a capacity building programme. He returned in 2015 to continue work on collaborative research projects with his Ethiopian colleagues.  Whilst in the country he collected numerous objects and images which form the basis of a series of exhibitions. Here he writes about the current exhibition in Bath which is supported by a grant from the Newcastle Institute of Social Renewal.

made-in-ethiopia-1

Fairfield House is a well-proportioned, Italianate mid-nineteenth century house on the outskirts of the genteel and historic city of Bath – and a long way from Africa. However for 5 years (1936-1941) it was the home of the Ethiopian Emperor, King of Kings, Conquering Lion of Judah, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I.  Ethiopia was the only country in Africa country not to be colonised by the European powers and remained a proudly independent state – until Mussolini’s troops invaded in 1935.  Haile Selassie, his family and his court managed to escape into exile – and ended up in Fairfield House.  On his return to Ethiopia he gifted the house to the city of Bath, and it is now a multi-cultural centre and the base of numerous black and ethnic minority groups, including Ethiopian, African-Caribbean and Rastafari communities in the South West.

The window of Haile Selassie’s former bedroom is transformed into the Ethiopian flag assembled from hundreds of children’s sandals.


The window of Haile Selassie’s former bedroom is transformed into the Ethiopian flag assembled from hundreds of children’s sandals.

Given its rich history and ongoing links with Africa, Fairfield House is the perfect place for this exhibition which highlights processes of rapid socio-economic change and modernization in Ethiopia. Many aspects of these changes can be observed in the ordinary objects which people use in their everyday lives and which are visible and tangible manifestations of the move from handmade, locally-sourced, natural materials – towards machine-made, high energy, imported materials. These changes are impacting on how people live and work, as well as on the values which underpin the society.

The exhibition examines these changes through a focus on material culture. Objects are good for telling stories and focusing ideas.  Drawing on contemporary art techniques, I created a series of assemblages of objects which present stories of celebration, optimism and creativity alongside development dilemmas and challenges.  The installations are complemented by colourful video images on large monitors which show the objects in context.  The key themes are food security, water, childhood, maternal health, language and religious traditions.

The exhibition commenced in March with a wonderful opening evening which drew people from numerous community, charity and religious groups from the South West. In addition to a few speeches, we enjoyed music played by an Ethiopian cellist and drank cups of traditional Ethiopian coffee poured from elegant ceramic coffee pots and listened to inspirational Rastafarian poetry.

Last weekend I returned to Fairfield as the house and exhibition were included in the Bath Newbridge Arts Trail. Over two days close to 150 people from many walks of life came to see the exhibition – and it was encouraging to see visitors attracted and curious about the vibrant displays which in turn prompted discussions and an interest in learning more about the issues presented.

On Saturday evening the house reverberated with the hypnotic rhythms of Rastafari drumming and chanting. The Rastafari meet regularly in Fairfield to celebrate the Sabbath and this was a special occasion to mark the anniversary of Haile Selassie’s triumphant return to Addis Ababa in May 1941 – to continue ruling as the last monarch of the 3,000 year old Solomonic dynasty which began with the union of King Solomon of Israel and the Queen of Sheba (ancient Ethiopia and Yemen).  The Rastafari take their name from Haile Selassie’s pre-coronation name of Ras (Prince) Tafari, and for them he is much more than a king – he is regarded as God (Jah) and the messiah who came to liberate black people throughout the world.  For them to spend time in his former house is highly significant.

The exhibition provides a focus for related workshops and participatory events to engage wider audiences. Starting with a lively session with the black and ethnic minority senior citizen group which meets regularly in Fairfield, we are now organising activities with the local community as well as visits of local schoolchildren and African refugees.  These events will encourage creative activities around development themes with the aim of fostering understanding and dialogue between different social and ethnic groups and thereby contribute to community cohesion and social renewal.

Dr Peter Kellett

The past in the present: a Reflection on music in the English reformation

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This blog piece is the latest in our New Voices in Social Renewal series and is by Daisy Gibbs, PHD student at Newcastle University and provides a fascinating insight into the music from an evocative period of history.

Photo of singers in Newcastle Universtiy event, featuring early music.

Simon Veit-Wilson Photography

When someone asks me what I study I usually say something like ‘Music in the English Reformation’. It may not be wholly true but people do tend to know what it means! In fact, I’m studying the music collections of Elizabethan amateurs, compiled after England officially became a Protestant country in 1559 but at a time of continuing religious change, negotiation and unrest. These collections survive in dozens of manuscripts scattered in libraries across the country, many of them copied by identifiable individuals. I’m using several case-studies to find out how and where they acquired their music and what encouraged them to choose the pieces that they did.

Helping me in my search is the fact that most of these books don’t just contain music. Many also contain marginal notes, drawings, and even poetry, and their combination of music and paratext carries a huge amount of information. Some copyists seem to have been motivated by concerns which today are all too ominously familiar: a jingoistic pride in Britishness and British art; an ‘island mentality’, and a consequent need to compete with the older and more established music industry of Europe. There are even a couple of references, in the manuscripts of the Oxford don Robert Dow, to ‘our race’, defining the British people not by citizenship but by blood. Sometimes moments like these just make you want to close the books, stop reading, and hope it all goes away. But at other times, even if we know next to nothing about the people who copied the music, we can sympathise with them, because their concerns were the same as ours are now. Among their number we find friends gathering after dinner to entertain themselves with wine and singing, students and schoolchildren copying music to learn before their next lesson, connoisseurs annotating their books with which pieces they thought the best and – in a couple of cases – rather ill-informed criticism.

But that’s not all. Some of the most intriguing books to survive are those which contain music written for Catholic church services, before the accession of Elizabeth I – music which it was now treasonous to perform in public. At this time Roman Catholics were reviled and persecuted: it was illegal even to be a Catholic priest in England and as the reign progressed, the fines for non-attendance at Church of England services were ramped up and up. Some Catholic families lived in constant fear. And yet. Although some of the copyists we can identify were Catholics, others were right at the heart of the conformist establishment, including a schoolteacher, John Sadler, and a singer in the Chapel Royal, John Baldwin. Their books show a love and appreciation for the cultural legacy of Catholicism. Though they might have strongly disagreed with what it stood for, these people could still understand its beauty and value. Even today – especially today – at a time when many are becoming increasingly intolerant of difference, we can learn from such open-mindedness.

My research will not put an end to extremism and it’s not trying to. But, in our study of these Elizabethan musicians, my colleagues and I are uncovering what must surely offer hope in times of change: a deep appreciation of a very different and at times hostile culture, its artistry and sophistication; a quiet love of the past without finding any need to revive or relive it; and the recognition that, however trying the times, those human constants of good music and good company can always provide us with an anchor of sorts; as it were, the calm in the eye of the storm.

Daisy Gibbs, student, Newcastle University