‘Now that she’s gone, there are fears that her work could vanish too’
If you struggled with your identity, what would you do? Well, Maud Sulter took photographs.
Maud was an award-winning artist, writer, curator and gallerist born in Glasgow in 1960. She had mixed Ghanaian and Scottish heritage.
An exhibition of her work, ‘Passion’, is currently taking place at Street level photo works at the Trongate, including her critically acclaimed ‘Zabat’ which comprises of a series of photographic portraits of black women from artists to musicians and writers posing as theatrical ancient muses and ‘Syrcas,’ a collection of montages and texts which links the slave trade in Africa with the persecution of European minorities in the 1930s and 1940s.
A photo that I enjoyed looking at was one that showed us the harshness of slavery; it showed an African island where slaves were kept.
More of Maud’s work can be seen at Hillhead library. ‘About Face’ is a collection of ten of her polaroid photographs featuring Scottish poets at the beginning of the new century.
Each photograph measures 20 by 24 inches and were taken by a machine brought over from Prague in the summer of 2002. Maud had just one chance of capturing the portraits.
Some of the poets featured are Edwin Morgan, Janet Paisley, Gerry Loose and Liz Niven among others. The exhibition is taking place because Maud’s work and particularly the black art movement appear to be largely absent from the archives. In Maud’s lifetime, she worked hard to keep her work preserved and now that she’s gone, there are fears that her work could vanish too.
The exhibition made me think about who we really are and if you like photography and art then you may like this too. The Maud Sulter research team are launching a catalogue of her work from June 2015, visit https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/maud-sulter-passion to find out more.
Jenny Kelly
‘I think what she did is amazing’
Her mum was Scottish and her dad was from Ghana. Her name was Maud Sulter and she was an artist. This is the first major exhibition since she died in 2008.
As I walked in I saw large portraits of beautiful women who are wearing traditional clothes. Maud Sulter also made pictures using collage with things like African elephants with European mountains put together so all the images are kind of mixed up. There are some other pictures too, like one of a women who is wearing traditional Victorian clothes, in black and white. There are other picture of white people and black people, which seem to be about her exploring the two sides of herself.
I really liked this exhibition because you can see how hard she worked getting all the ideas and how important it was for her to talk about how she felt about people.
What she wanted was people who treat others well and take care of each other no matter where they are from. When you see the pictures you will see how important it was for her to do this and show others through her art. I think what she did is amazing.
Istahil Nur
Passion, by Maud Sulter, is at Street Level photo works until 21 June: www.streetlevelphotoworks.org
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