ABSTRACT
Narrative texts and films have so far been at the centre of both the overview and the close readings of this book. Texts have been the medium in which not only ‘facts’ of black British history have been related and causally linked in the most effective manner, but also the instrument with which writers and critics have drawn attention to omissions in this history, to complexities, to the traumatic rather than the triumphant experiences; texts have been the medium in which the recent discourses surrounding black British history have been primarily generated and affirmed, but also corrected, complemented, questioned and sometimes deconstructed. However, narratives can come in forms that go beyond the mere text: As the overview of filmic products has shown, film has come to play an important part in the construction of historical meaning, and—aside from the use of scripts—many of the representational devices at work in film are closely related to those used in texts: Editing corresponds to structure, the choice of camera angle corresponds to focalisation and the use of diegetic and extradiegetic (i.e., ‘off’) sound and voice correspond to narrative perspective, overt and covert narration. Thus, the processing of images (‘frames’) in a film is related, if not essentially akin to, the processing of words and phrases in a text. In its capacity to process both words and images, film is a particularly ‘potent’ representational medium. As both material dimensions are made to ‘collaborate’ in a filmic product, reading a film’s images and its words usually goes hand in hand. However, images by no means have to rely on accompanying narratives, and a closer look at the image itself seems apt, particularly in the context of a study that has repeatedly drawn attention to ‘iconographic’ 1 moments and rituals in historical texts. This chapter is not devoted to film, but to diverse forms of visual representation which are not conceived for the medium of television or traditional cinematic representation, but for the exhibition space. In the examples from the realm of visual arts presented in what follows, narrative structures and devices are clearly discernible. The outset is formed by general reflections concerning narrativity and image. In an overview the emergence of black British history as a theme in British art is traced and a selection of artistic examples is presented to convey an impression of the context and the diversity of themes and approaches. The final section of this chapter draws attention to a hybrid genre, the video installation, by returning to Isaac Julien’s Paradise Omeros. This work of art does not only provide a distinct approach of its own to black British history and the discourses surrounding it, but can serve to address some of the issues raised in the introduction as well as some of the prevalent thematic plateaus, representational rituals and diverse positions considered in the course of this book.
