Between 2018 and 2021 LMA aims to digitise and catalogue 5,000 sound recordings, from their audio collections as well as those held at local archives, universities, museums and galleries across the Greater London area. These cover everything from oral histories to world music, academic lectures to urban soundscapes.

London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) holds the documents of Guyanese-born Jessica and Eric Huntley, radical book publishers and pioneering Black political activists, prolifically involved with the British African-Caribbean communities’. Audio from these archives has been recently digitised by the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) project at LMA.

This event series is focused on the archives of Jessica and Eric Huntley, and is part of long-term and sustained work taking place at LMA to share Black British history through work with schools, community groups and with the general public.

This ambitious project is part of the wider Save Our Sounds programme, which aims to:

• Digitally preserve almost half a million rare and at-risk sound recordings
• Establish a network of audio preservation centres across the UK
• Engage more people with the value of sound recordings

Three guest curators unpack these archives, bringing together high-profile public figures including academic Kehinde Andrews, online influencer Mikai McDermott and dub poet Mutabaruka, to listen to extracts from the audio archives and relate them to the pressing issues of the day. Themes include exclusion of Black students in education, Black organising in the UK, and decolonising language.

Events:

• Babylon’s Schooling: Exclusion of Black students in the 1980s and now. Curated by Aliyah Hasinah. 5.30-9pm, 7th April. Register to attend here
• Black Organising in the UK: Caribbean homes as a space of Black joy and resistance.Curated by Ife Thompson. 7-8.30pm, 28th April. Register to attend here
• The role of Afrikan centred publishing in decolonising language.Talkin meh Talk: My words set me free. 7-9pm, 26th May. Curated by Isis Amlak. Register to attend here

Guest curators:

Aliyah Hasinah

Aliyah Hasinah is a curator, writer and director focused on nuances and the beauty in mundanity of Black experiences. Aliyah has previously curated for Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (2017), Eastside Projects (2018), Bald Black Girls’ by Ruth Sutoye (2019), Creative Debuts (2021). In 2021, Aliyah founded the Black Curatorial Labs, a space for virtual and physical experimentation and play within the curatorial realm.

Ife Thompson

Ife Thompson is an award-nominated UK-based Community organiser, United Nations Fellow, Black History Expert, Barrister and Writer. She curates projects that showcase truthful, intergenerational  and accurate narratives of Africa and the African diaspora both globally and locally. She has a particular interest in mapping ways in which Black people have resisted through the maintaining and readapting cultures and customs from the African continent within the diaspora.

Isis Amalak

Isis Amalak is an arts and cultural curator, production manager, she has worked creative stakeholders in the UK, and internationally. Isis is a writer and a presenter and is passionate about archiving social history and the educational legacy of Afrikan & African-Caribbean writers and publishers. As a poet she performs under the name I Sis and she has a MA in Black British Writing.

London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) is one of ten regional hubs across the UK to join the British Library’s Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project (UOSH), funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

Header Image: Jessica & Eric Huntly. Courtesy of FHALMA