ELSA JAMES

Elsa James is an artist, producer and activist living in Essex since 1999. Her work intervenes in the overlapping discourses of race, gender, diaspora and belonging. She has an interdisciplinary and research-based practice within the fields of contemporary performance, text and language-based art, and socio-political and socially engaged art; she also occasionally dabbles with drawing and painting. Recent projects Forgotten Black Essex (2018) and Black Girl Essex (2019) explores the historical, temporal and spatial dimensions of what it means to be black in Essex; England’s most misunderstood, and, homogeneously white county, which are prevalent issues in her practice. James has exhibited, performed and presented projects within the UK including Furtherfield, London; Tate Exchange at Tate Modern, London, Metal Culture, Southend; Big Screen Southend at Focal Point Gallery, Southend; Site Gallery, Sheffield and Firstsite Gallery, Colchester. James (born in 1968, London) holds a first-class honours degree from Chelsea School of Art. She is on the board of trustees for Scottee and Friends. She lives and works in London and Essex. Elsa originally wrote the article submitted for PLACE 2020 as part of the Essex Girls Liberation Front (EGLF) takeover of a local magazine in Essex called Trawler in 2019. She has shared an updated version here partly in response to the brutal murder of George Floyd in the USA, followed by the 'Black Lives Matter' protests, which have uncovered ugly truths about Britain's past and the everyday struggles of black people.