Race & Class Journal Covers image by P Rutter with permissions from the IRR.
Pauline Rutter is an archival artist, and community and organisational poet. Her talk was organised by the Design Archives and the Centre for Design History as part of the IOTA II series, on Wednesday 27 November 2024.
Reflections on the talk ‘Designing for ‘Radical, Informed and Liberatory Scholarship’: A Creative Archival Research Journey inspired by the Institute for Race Relations (IRR) Race and Class Publication Journal Covers’ by Archival Artist Pauline Rutter.
The following poetic blog is best experienced in conjunction with the captioned video of Pauline’s talk available here.
Read On
Begin / Start where you meant to / Speaking of history that is living / With ‘Race and Class’ hand in hand A journal asserting resistance / Through the self-assurance of its covers / Its 50-year anti-imperialist nerve still holding fast / And article print demanding / How can you understand racism devoid of any political, social or economic context? / Well, can you? / Could you ever? / Dissect and reconnect each term / Unravel and relearn their meaning / What’s held in tension / Becomes intent on the page / Read on.
Take an organisation / Setting up in 1956 / In a bombed out, smoked up Britain / Scarred but seeking inequitable repair / Moguls calling out / Re-search the problems of the end of Empire / Of an empire that doesn’t want an end / Of the comfortable Empire lords and absolute rulers / Ready with new steps for the disenfranchised of the world to dance / Never a last chance / For elite control of fact-less knowledge / That divides and devours / Every living thing / And bans our books / So, no one can / Read on.
Simple in those early days / A pristine cover, white / A piercing font, red / The ‘C’ of RACE made sharp enough / To impale a world / And slice up every continent / From each colonial riverbank / To every re-occupied shore / RACE / This journal / Sober / Sanguine / Steadfast / Beneficial / Only to the plundering class / Loyal to the stifling status quo / And infected social order / List the funder barons / Of the British South Africa Company / Rhodesian copper mining dukes / And gold and diamond digging Oppenheimer’s corporation / A journal for them / To augment a space / That bristled with citation / And sustaining published papers / Rallying to the insidious expedition / Into race / That their insatiable friends could / Read on.
Enter Professor Chris Mullard / Hampshire born, / Labelled a ‘rabid Marxist’ by his detractors, / Black / With a PhD thesis long behind him. / And 70 in this 2015 North-East Chronicle spread / Fear gripped the elites, he recalls / Their Cold War strategy might not cement / Imperialist political intent / A Communist Russia unrestrained / Could trample all the capitalist powers / And deny them domination of the newly liberated peoples / Who might be salved and soothed / By the red of creeping socialism / A smile from Chris / So little’s changed / You’d better just / Read on.
But underlying that barren rock / The most unlikely seed of transformation stirred / The courage of a staff / Removing chains in 1972 / To battle with societal discourse / To write the route of activists / To a Britain free from sus laws / And policing violence / And corroding media / And international horrors / To tend a shoot that might grow / Out from the shadow / Of the racist institutions / Would this vote lead to liberty? / Read on.
The balance tipped at IRR / A seething board dissolved / Funds left / Colleagues lost / An office too / But grass roots grew / Supporters came / And swept away the decades of deception / Gathered up radical sources / And radical direction / A. Sivanandan stepped up / Race & Class was born / In multi coloured covers / Revealing a future / Where Black and ‘third world’ liberation / Could free us all / And see here / An image clear / As bold as black Futura / And bespeckled Siva urging / From every shelf / Read on.
You won’t be sorry / At this taking of position / The call from revolutionary figures / Answered / As they will us to / Read on.
For insights and ammunition / Against imperialist weathering / For faces telling stark and sombre truths / From resistance to rebellion / From riots to reports / And even Lord Scarman declares / “…urgent action” needed to prevent racial disadvantage / becoming an “endemic, ineradicable disease / threatening the very survival of our society”. / Though police still unaccountable / When it comes to violent impropriety / And reminiscences ring within our heads / To the tune of what’s before our eyes / Familiar to the letter as we / Read on.
Could a special issue / For representation and reclamation / Do more that stereotype and fascinate / Knowing Blaxploitation / Never meant to liberate. / And if your cover shows Nicky Winmar / Defiant as he’s drenched by spectators’ racial slurs / Reliving a day that changed his life forever, / What must be said about design / Reviving time and time again / One of the many worst days he knew / As an Aboriginal Australian / Playing nothing less than first-rate football / Being nothing more excellent / On a turf churned up / By boots and words / That hurt as you / Read on.
What politics designs / Chimes / And reminds / That a flag must be lowered / Every time / The moral compass shatters / And what remains / In rubble / Are accounts / Of cruel injustice / That a golden journal cover / And a proud defiant woman / And words green as the / Soothing hope for freedom / Insist we take them up and / Read on.
Which leads me / To where I began / With ‘Seeing off Empire’ and ‘the life of Pearl Prescod’ / With permissions from the Institute of Race Relations / And from Pearl’s son, it’s long-time chair / So that she might sing again / Through art installation / And open our eyes / To stories and lives / On a canvas / In a journal / On a wall / And in every other place / We design for words to have a space / So, the many might be / Reinspired to / Read on.
And if you’re here / And if I’m clear / There’s little left to say / A baton of many comes to you / An invitation for telling more than is already known / Submit your words to paper / Because / We must / Read on / Read on.
The ‘Lifting Us Up’ Archival Art Installation by Pauline Rutter installed at The Heritage
Space Sussex County Hospital (2024) and funded by My University Hospitals Sussex.
The exhibition included a photograph of designer Althea McNish from the Design Council Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives
Pauline Rutter
Archival Artist: Community and Organisational Poet
linktree/paulinerutter
For the Institute of Race Relations: https://irr.org.uk/
Paper Submissions Details: https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/rac
