Changes in Light: Premiere

Come and join us for the public premiere of Changes in Light, a short film that focuses on the decolonising work of IALS. It was made by IALS’ first practitioner in residence, and now Associate Fellow, Dr Anna Macdonald, working with Head Librarian, Marilyn Clarke, director of photography Marisa Zanotti and IALS library staff. It is a warm, nuanced film that brings attention to the colonial legacies that influence library design and the importance of work staff are doing to address this. Drawing on Macdonald’s background in screendance (an artform combining dance and film) Changes in Light explores the impact of the affective qualities of libraries on those who use them as a way of revealing the colonial complexities of law itself. 

The screening will involve an introduction to the project from IALS director Carl Stychin, short responses to the film from invited guests Professor Diamond Ashiagbor and Dr. Alice Corble, an open discussion and refreshments.

Please be aware that this film and discussion will raise issues of decolonisation and archival practices within the library which may trigger racial trauma.

This film was made with kind support from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study and Research at Central Saint Martins, UAL.

Diamond Ashiagbor is Professor of Law at the University of Kent, and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies (Sept-Dec 2024). She is an interdisciplinary legal scholar whose research and teaching spans labour law, equality, race and colonialism, regionalism (European Union and African Union). She has held visiting positions at Columbia Law School and Melbourne Law School; is a member of the editorial board of European Law Open; and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). She was awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship for a project entitled ‘Reconceptualising Labour Law: Race, Legal Form and the Legacies of Colonialism’.

Dr Alice Corble is a Lecturer in Library and Information Studies and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow with a project titled Postcolonial Library Legacies and New Transnational Maps of Learning (2023-2026).

A transdisciplinary scholar-activist, educator and professional, Alice’s work is grounded in the social and epistemic justice dimensions of libraries and archives. She has fourteen years' professional experience working in public and academic libraries; a pathway that commenced with a traineeship in radical librarianship at the Feminist Library in 2010. Prior to this Alice worked in adult social care roles. With MA in Cultural Studies and a PhD in Sociology from Goldsmiths, University of London, Alice's doctoral thesis explored the socio-political significance of English public libraries during times of crisis. Her current Leverhulme-funded research examines movements to ‘decolonise’ higher education by investigating the integral role of libraries in (post)colonial entanglements of nation-building and knowledge-building. This builds on her prior work at the University of Sussex Library, where she uncovered historical connections with postcolonial knowledge formations in the Caribbean and South Africa. The current multi-sited archival-ethnographic project aims to reframe educational and library narratives through a transnational reparative lens. 

Anna Macdonald is a dance artist/scholar whose work moves between moving image and performance practice. Her work is exhibited in both festival and gallery settings and has generated interdisciplinary findings in the fields of health, science and law, within large-scale projects funded by AHRC, Arts Council England and Wellcome Trust. She is a Reader in Movement at UAL: Central Saint Martins, London and an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London.
https://annamacdonaldart.co.uk/

This event is free to attend, but booking is required.