Serpentine Gallery Event at New Beacon Books - 24 September 2021
Abstract re ‘Serpentine Pavilion 24 September 2021' essay by Nadia Joseph
In this article, New Beacon Books team member, Nadia Joseph, shares her thoughts and reflections on the 2021 Serpentine Pavilion designed by the South African architect Sumayya Vally (who is part of the Johannesburg practice Counterspace). Johannesburg is also where Nadia’s father was born and where he met her mother both of whom were members of the South African liberation movement.
Vally is, to date, the youngest designer of the Pavilion. Nadia’s piece is both a personal memoir and tribute to the beauty and purpose of the Pavilion and two of the many places that inspired its creation, one of which is New Beacon Books. It is an exploration of the value of places of meeting and the significant contributions of diasporas from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean to the cultural and political life of London.
A fragment of the pavillion design was placed in New Beacon's book shop in 2021 and other venues around London to mark their position as important spaces of resistance in London. A catalogue with text and photographs of the locations in the project was produced by Serpentine Gallery. New Beacon Books was happy to be part of this Serpentine project co-ordinated by Natalia Grabowska. The pavilion fragment was placed in the book shop. It is displayed in the middle of the book shop and was specially designed by Sumayya Vally to acts as both a piece of art along with a display function.
On the 24th September 2021 New Beacon Books and the Serpentine Gallery collaborated on curating literature reading performances in the book shop which were videoed and were later transmitted by the Serpentine Gallery (please check the Serpentine website). The readings were by six authors who read from their own work or writing specially selected for the occasion . The event was co-hosted by Nadia Joseph and Courttia Newland. Authors and readers included Tice Cin, Derek Owusu, Margaret Busby, Courttia Newland, Professor Gus John and Irfan Master.
Photo credit Gary Back
The Serpentine Pavilion 2021
In early 2021, during a working day at New Beacon Books in Finsbury Park, I had a serendipitous encounter.
A visitor to the shop introduced herself, Natalia Grabowska, Curator of the Serpentine Gallery’s Pavilion. She spoke gently, was friendly and down to earth. She said that the 2021 pavilion was being designed by a Johannesburg-based practice called Counterspace, led by a young female architect, Sumayya Vally. I was instantly curious to know more owing to my interest in art and my family background being South African.
Natalia proceeded to tell me that Sumayya's plan was to create a pavilion inspired by London’s diasporas and cross-cultural communities in relation to historical and contemporary places of meeting.
She explained that specific London sites were informing Sumayya’s design of the pavilion in Kensington Gardens. Four fragments would be installed in different neighbourhoods in the north, south, east and west of London. This would link these pieces and locations to each other as well as to the pavilion itself.
The creative intention of the project appealed to me as, in my mind’s eye, it would be both a physical and metaphorical meeting of parts. The pavilion would be the central body and the four fragments its limbs at once independent whilst also connected to each other and the core.
The purpose of Natalia’s visit was to ask if New Beacon Books (NBB) would be willing to be part of the project. She said the fragments would also have a useful function in the spaces in which they would be situated. In regards to NBB, it might be a display unit of some sort.
This combination of form and function conveyed to me another strength of Sumayya’s vision by being a work of art as well as utilitarian. So often, we admire buildings that we can only see from afar or have to pay to visit and wander around quietly with a sense of awe but distance. Many have a tactile quality achieved through the various materials used that invite us to touch them and yet rarely is this permitted. The prospect of a fragment being in the shop encouraged a dialogue with the artist and users of the space itself.
I told Natalia that it sounded wonderful and I was sure the shop’s directors, Michael La Rose and Janice Durham, would fully support this exciting proposal.
Sumayya’s ideas for the 2021 pavilion resonated with me on a deep, personal level in a number of ways. I have only worked at New Beacon Books since 2019 but I visited it periodically when I was a child with my father, later as a young adult when I lived nearby and in more recent years with my son to attend book launches and discussions. My parents were friends with its founders, John La Rose and his partner Sarah White.
John and my dad had both been trade union activists in their countries of birth, Trinidad and South Africa respectively. It was their internationalist politics that led them as delegates to the 4th World Youth Festival in Rumania in 1953.
My parents, Paul and Adelaide, had been involved in the liberation struggle in South Africa. In 1956, my father was one of the156 accused in the Treason Trial alongside Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Lilian Ngoyi and Ruth First. He eventually had to flee the country after periods of imprisonment, torture and banning orders. He and my mother went into political exile in London in 1965.
John La Rose had already settled in London by then and New Beacon Books began its life in 1966 which, coincidentally, was the year of my birth. It was the first bookshop and publishing house in the U.K. to specialise in books by and about people from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. Those associated with the shop have always supported the global fight against racism as well as being active in campaigns for social justice here in Britain.
It has survived for so long owing to its strong roots in the community and its work in education and culture.
Once my parents were granted political asylum, they rented a small, ground-floor flat at 37 Powis Square in Notting Hill. This was my first home and its location is another pathway connecting me to the 2021 Serpentine Pavilion.
The area’s Victorian terraced houses were, in the main, owned over generations by wealthy, white, English families. Despite this, many properties had fallen into disrepair and, in effect, become slums. The infamous Peter Rachman financially exploited local working class residents by renting them cramped and inadequate accommodation.
Our family was fortunate that our landlords were not of his ilk and were in fact, friendly fellow Indian South Africans. However, the flat was small and also inhabited by mice.
I remember long after we had left Powis Square, my dad saying how he and mum would open the cupboard by the oven and see mice “dancing on the pots”. Thankfully, I was too young to remember this and the image the anecdote conjured felt more akin to ‘The Tales of Beatrix Potter’ rather than the health hazard that had worried my parents.
The race riots of 1958 were not far away in the memories of Notting Hill’s residents and racial discrimination continued. It did not, however, prevent ever-evolving vibrant and diverse cultures to flourish in the area. My parents met people from all parts of the world. They campaigned with politically like-minded neighbours to make Powis Square’s central garden accessible to its residents and not remain locked-up by a private, absent landlord. They eventually won and the gates to the garden were opened.
During the years we lived there, my parents were immersed in the colour, political energy and sounds of the 1960s. The annual Notting Hill Carnival was in its infancy and becoming more popular. Hippies were hanging out in Portobello Road alongside the Caribbean and white working class communities.
Several left-wing activists, who my parents forged lasting friendships with, also lived in the area. Together they protested against the Vietnam War and atomic bomb. My mum and dad screened Peter Watkins’ controversial film ‘The War Game’ in their flat. This was a pseudo-documentary made for the BBC that depicted a nuclear attack. It caused alarm for the government so was promptly withdrawn.
During this period, Nic Roeg’s seminal cult film ‘Performance’ was made and they used a house in Powis Square as a location. My eldest sister, who was around nine years old at the time, can remember her excitement at seeing Mick Jagger who acted in the film.
The beautiful and impressive Romanesque Tabernacle, also located in Powis Square, started its life as a church. When my family settled in the area, it was still running Sunday school sessions. It later became a community and arts venue which I went to on occasion in my late teens/early 20s. It has long been connected to the Carnival as well as the promotion of calypso music.
When Natalia told me that one of the four fragments would also be at the Tabernacle, my heart warmed. It is located at 34-35 Powis Square so it was one of our neighbours. The streets of W11 are where my soul and the city connect. The vibe of the neighbourhood always lifts me despite having lived away from there for most of my life. What is more, long before the first Serpentine Pavilion was built, my mum used to take me and my sisters to meet dad after work at the tube station for an early evening walk in Kensington Gardens. These geographical markers, memories and strands of my past were brought together in the most beautifully nostalgic way with the concept of 2021’s pavilion.
Michael La Rose met Natalia and Sumayya during the preparatory stage of its development and agreed to the fragment at New Beacon Books.
I looked forward with much anticipation to the culmination of the work and on the August Bank holiday weekend, I made my first visit to the pavilion itself. I exited Lancaster Gate tube station and crossed the road to the park. I admired the trees, flowers and birds and passed people chatting and enjoying ice-creams from the retro-style van parked on one of the paths. I had arranged to meet a couple of friends there but had arrived before them so had time to explore the pavilion on my own.
I first glimpsed it as I walked around the outside of The Serpentine Gallery; this pavilion felt both new and familiar. I was immediately struck by its form and colour. The information leaflet explained that the materials used to create it were reclaimed steel, cork and timber covered with micro-cement.
The sunlight altered its tones depending on where the rays met the varying shapes. The base of the ceiling appeared to me as sepia whereas the exterior curved surrounding of the roof was closer to a dazzling white as a result of the brilliant summer sun hitting it directly.
The colours of the supporting columns seemed to be created from two contrasting palettes; one ranging from charcoal to the opaque, dusty quality of blue/black olives.
The other comprised shades of the palest salmon to more of a peach hue. The tones and tiny bubbles in these sections, formed by the delicately porous surfaces, made me think of flutes of pink champagne. The grooves within truncated blocks, stood strong like pages of The Financial Times folded neatly into upright paper fans.
As I walked around and within the pavilion, I understood its appeal to me. It was both modernist and classical, beautiful and useful. One of the things that I love about the capital the most is the architecture of the London Underground Tube system. I am fascinated by its history, amazed by the hard labour involved in building it and impressed by the fine details of its design. The periods in which the stations were erected reflect changes in architecture over three centuries.
I have spent ages looking at the tiles, admiring Johnston’s font and Harry Beck’s incredible map as well as the beauty of the stations themselves. 2021’s pavilion reminded me of Charles Holden’s design for Southgate Station. This is not solely because of a similarity in overall appearance but also because the function of the tube is to keep London’s citizens and visitors connected. It it is a tapestry of beautiful independent stations that together create a huge and organic structure which, like London itself, barely goes to sleep.
Sumayya Vally’s pavilion celebrated the diversity of London’s inhabitants as well as its historical and contemporary buildings. It too had a functional value by providing a space for people to explore and use in their own ways.
Some edges of the structure were smooth and rounded, others rectangular and perpendicular. There were areas within it that created both soft and hard undulating shapes. These could be used as seats or to recline on as you would in your home. Other parts of it could be traversed at a height. This enabled children, as well as adults confident enough to express their inner child, to leap and clamber across sections of it with abandon producing much joy.
Tourists and locals weaved in and out of it, cool young people posed for photos using the structure’s own apertures to both illuminate and frame their images. Kensington Gardens provided a perfect backdrop. Some visitors were having conversations punctuated by laughter whilst others relaxed alone and in silence reading. A dynamic was achieved between the pavilion and the visitors that brought it to life. It was like a shared house occupied by people who really seemed to appreciate it and were able to co-exist with its other inhabitants.
Later, my friends and I sat within it drinking tea and eating chocolate whilst talking enthusiastically about all sorts of things from art to identity politics. The experience made me think of another word to describe the Pavilion which is ‘forum’ as it evoked images of ancient Rome.
On September 24th 2021, New Beacon Books, in collaboration with the Serpentine Gallery, hosted an event at the bookshop. Owing to the restrictions of Covid19, we could not invite many people to the event but it was, nevertheless, a wonderful evening. The fragment designed by Sumayya was already installed in the shop. We used it to display books from the writers who had been asked to participate in the evening’s programme.
Unfortunately, Michael La Rose was unable to attend but had asked me to step-in as host. Whilst, slightly daunted by this request, I was also excited. It was wonderful to finally meet Sumayya who was charming and unassuming like Natalia. It was, on a personal level, a moment of unexpected pride meeting this young South African woman. I felt she had achieved so much through her work with sensitivity, respect and beauty.
The writers included some of NBB’s extended family such as Professor Gus John and editor Margaret Busby as well as other established writers and newcomers: Courtia Newland, Derek Owusu, Irfan Master and Tice Cin. As they read excerpts from their work, NBB once again provided a space for celebrating books, reading, listening, debate and socialising. It was a fitting way to mark its 55th year. It also happened to be my 55th birthday that day and I felt blessed to experience some of the strands of my life, both past and present, come together in the company of some of my dear NBB colleagues.
I returned to to the Pavilion in the week before it was taken down in late October. This time I went with another friend. I asked him to take photographs of it and made an unusual request that he also photograph me. I wanted to have some images as a keepsake of that connection.
As the season had changed to autumn so too had the light. It was a quieter day that allowed me more time to reflect. I felt somewhat melancholic knowing that it would not be there on my next visit to Kensington Gardens. I contemplated its temporary life in this particular place and time. Some of London’s buildings date back thousands of years and new ones are always being created. Likewise, changes in the composition of its population, structures and spaces evolve but what remains is its dynamism. 2021’s Pavilion is all of those things too, past, present and future as its fragments remain.
2022’s Pavilion is being dreamed of now and like London tourists will spend the summer in Kensington Gardens next year.