Black Lives Matter: Then and Now (2020-2025)
The Protester – Diensen Pamben
BLM Protest Demonstration: Then & Now (2020 – 2025)
In June 2020, Brighton’s streets filled with over 10,000 voices demanding justice for George Floyd and Black lives worldwide. It was a moment of global grief and awakening. Five years on, we ask: where are we now? The anger, hope, and solidarity sparked then continue to ripple through our city. While some progress has been made, systemic change remains slow. This archive stands not just as memory, but as an active invitation to reflect, reckon, and build a future rooted in equity and truth.
The project
BARCO are proud to work with Erin James and Jean Jules Wachter in collaboration with Brighton & Hove Museums on this archival project.
If we wish to learn from our pasts in order to create a better future for all, it is of vital importance that Black people and their perspectives are included in institutions like museums. Museums shape collective memory, cultural identity, and historical narratives; those who are excluded from the institutions that preserve history are continually excluded from future progress. Museums are not neutral spaces — they reflect the values of the societies that build them. For too long, Black histories have been marginalised, distorted, or completely erased in these institutions. The inclusion of Black voices and perspectives corrects historical imbalances, validates lived experiences, and ensures that future generations have access to a fuller picture of the past.
This work is especially important when we consider the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent global Black Lives Matter uprisings in 2020. Over 10,000 people took to the streets of Brighton to proclaim that ‘Black Lives Matter’ in June 2020, and protests continued throughout the summer. Whether we realise it or not, this movement set in motion a multitude of changes in our city. We wanted to document this time in 2020 as a potential turning point, and to reflect on what has and has not changed in terms of anti-Blackness and racial equity in Brighton & Hove.
By digitally presenting remembered moments and representations of the Black Lives Matter protests in Brighton, we hope to continue the important conversations from 2020. In this collaboration, Brighton & Hove Museums affirms the historical significance of this time, recognising it as a pivotal moment in the fight against anti-Black racism. The inclusion of these memories and representations at Brighton & Hove Museums is monumental.
In short, this work reclaims agency over how Black lives are remembered and represented. We hope it fosters healing; sparks dialogue and further empowers communities. Without projects such as this, museums and other institutions run the risk of remaining spaces of exclusion, rather than platforms for justice, education, and transformation. Shifts such as these are what we want to see in our city – and we hope this project paves a way for more equitable change in our museums and their archiving practices.
BLM Expo – About the Curators: Erin James and Jean Jules Wachter aka Mid-Street Lab
Erin and Jean’s curation of the BLM Expo is both personal and political. Both founded their creative and academic practices in response to systemic silencing or invisibility of black experience and voices. Their practices uplift cultural altruism and community cohesion through creativity. The images and artworks showcased here reveal a complex, layered Black experience shaped by colonial histories, diaspora identities, and daily resistance. More than an exhibition, this is a transmission across generations—a call to see, feel, and shift the narratives we’ve inherited. Here, art is the vehicle for collective care and transformation.