Public Library UK Vol 1. After Kenneth Little

Public Library UK Vol 1, After Kenneth Little, 2024

Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little is a participatory spoken-word work. Thirty-seven volunteers read consecutive excerpts from the American sociologist Leonard Bloom’s introduction to the 1972 edition of Kenneth Little’s Negroes in Britain: A Study of Racial Relations in English Society. Bloom argued that Little’s book brought hitherto unseen nuance to the study of immigration. It was originally published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1948, a year now fabled as the beginning of the ‘Windrush generation’.  Little’s study, however, focused on the impact of immigration on Butetown, the dock area of Cardiff, Wales during the interwar years of the twentieth century. Nicknamed Tiger Bay, this district was noted for its multiethnic population, drawn from Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, and for being the epicentre of notorious race riots in 1919.

With the practice of anthropological field recordings in mind, Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little considers, not histories of societies and cultures of faraway people and faraway lands, but instead those closer to home. Drawing from a formidable archive of literature, Public Library UK Vol I excavates histories, terminologies, and observations which are both archaic and prescient.  Perennially reprised, centuries old anxieties around immigration and race relations, often odious and futile, are given new perspectives here. In Public Library UK Vol I the non-professional readers deliver passages modulated by varying accents and intonations. Although not visible, they are as much the subject of the work as the words they utter.

Information

Devised and produced by Richard Hylton, Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little is a limited-edition work, produced as two 140g vinyl LPs presented in an extensively illustrated gatefold design including illuminating liner notes, Public Library: Some Considerations by Eddie Chambers and, Sonic Fictions of Unsettlement by Salomé Voegelin. Eddie Chambers is David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professor in Art History, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin, and Salomé Voegelin is Professor of Sound at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, UK.  The album’s pressing was made possible through a Research Culture Award from SOAS.

Readers:

Simon Aeppli 

Elizabeth Baxter

David Blackmore

Katherine Boxall

Jim Burbidge

Judy Campion

Dal Chodha

Ellie Doggett

Maren Hahnfeld

Simon Harper

Paula Harris

Stuart Hilton

Richard Hylton

Kay Hylton

Sashi Kahlon

Victoria Kelley

Alison Manning

Lisa Moore

Saima Mustaq

Simon Olding

Philip Osborne

Chrissie Ralph

Jeremy Ralph

Elle Reynolds

Laura Rowe

Kate Street

Ivy Tessmann

Mia Thurnhill

Reuben Thurnhill

Urjuan Toosy

Ellie Turner

Emmanuelle Waeckerle

Fiona White

James Wright

Devised, Produced and Recorded: Richard Hylton

Sound Editing: Oliver Schmidt

Photoshop Images: Reuben Thurnhill

Design: Urjuan Toosy

View more information at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1093475898849?aff=oddtdtcreator

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