Giant billboards of 'unsung Black trailblazers' Mary Seacole, Marsha P. Johnson and Ulric Cross unveiled at Young Vic theatre

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Lizzie Edmonds @lizzieedmo11 September 2020

Three giant artworks featuring “unsung trailblazers” from the Black community were today unveiled to mark the Young Vic theatre’s 50th anniversary.

Created by artists Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and Anna Fleischle, the large-scale picture billboards are of Mary Seacole, a British-Jamaican nurse during the Crimean War; Marsha P. Johnson, an LGBTQ+ rights and Aids activist from New York; and Ulric Cross, a Trinidadian diplomat who was the most decorated black serviceman of the Second World War.

Viewers can submit nominations for their own heroes’ names to be displayed on the side of the Waterloo theatre, which was established by director Frank Dunlop in 1970. The installation is supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Young Vic artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah, who succeeded David Lan in 2018, said the work was part of the theatre’s commitment to discussing issues of “heritage and legacy” - particularly in wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

The 53-year-old Londoner said he believed erecting large-scale artworks was the “next step” following recent calls and action to remove sculptures of high profile individuals with links to the slave trade across the UK. A statue of slave trader Edward Colston was removed from its plinth in Bristol in June during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the city.

He told the Standard: “I was pleased when the Bristol statue [of Colston] was pulled down; my ancestors were enslaved. But I thought: ‘What is the next step?’ It is to put things up.”

Speaking about the Young Vic billboards, he added: “We want people to integrate with it. We want people to tell us who they want to remember, who are their heroes that they want to remember. If we were open, we would be having huge discussions on heritage and legacy right now. So this is a way of ensuring the Young Vic is still part of that vital conversation.”

Kwei-Armah anticipated the movement would “inspire” a great deal of artistic work in coming months. He also suggested the white community had “listened” more during recent demonstrations than before.

“I imagine there will be a lot of work that will be inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, but I will be most interested in the work that looks at it from a distance, in a different way that is not so obviously about the Black Lives Matter movement. What I have noticed is that the white community is listening more, exponentially. I think Covid has changed people’s perspective. Something that challenges your mortality makes you reflect on the mortality of a community.”

Today, the Young Vic also announced other 50th anniversary year plans, including The New Tomorrow – a two day festival of performances exploring the next 50 years.

Amy Ng, Jack Thorne, Isobel Waller-Bridge and Steve Waters are among the writers involved in the festival – which will be the first time the public will return to the space since lockdown was implemented in March.

The performance will also be streamed online. “It will feel great to get people back in,” Kwei-Armah said. “You just need human interaction for live performance.”

From tomorrow (Saturday) a video celebrating the past people and productions of the theatre’s five-decade history will be displayed on the front of the building.

Kwei-Armah admitted much of the planned anniversary celebrations had been shelved due to the pandemic, but added: “We are just going to vibe it. We will do lots of pop-up events to celebrate but we will be responsive. I am a hard wired optimist. You’ve got to think positively.”