Making Meaning across the Frame: The McKenzie Heritage Picture Archive at Black Cultural Archives

Abstract

This article begins by providing a short history of the national heritage centre Black Cultural Archives, located in Brixton, London and founded in 1981. Also discussed are the social and political contexts which contributed to its inception. This piece then provides an overview of the organisation’s collections and collecting methods. We foreground Black Cultural Archives interventions in the construction of narratives around Black life and culture and the importance of self-representation. Moving outwards we introduce the McKenzie Heritage Picture Archives, a collection on loan from photographer Anita J. McKenzie to Black Cultural Archives. The McKenzie Heritage Picture Archives was a commercial photographic agency specializing in images of Black and Asian life. The collection is currently being catalogued through a cataloguing grant provided by The National Archives. We provide biographic information on McKenzie and discuss her decision to found the agency. Finally, we discuss the types of material within the collection and the aims of the cataloguing project.

Keywords:

• black archives
• photographic archives
• representation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figure 1. Promotional material for First Black Cultural Archives Museum in Britain, 1980s. BCA ref: BCA/3/1/10.

Figure 2. One black and white photograph of supporters, picketing Lambeth Town Hall for use of the Somerleyton Road site by Black Cultural Archives, which includes Len Garrison. BCA ref: BCA/4/1/1/4.

Figure 3. Anita J. McKenzie and another photographer in conversation. BCA ref: AC2014/66/4B.

Figure 4. ‘Imaging the Black Family’ poster for symposium organized by McKenzie Heritage Picture Archives, 1995. BCA ref: AC2014/66/4B.

Figure 5. Group of three young women playing board game, London. Undated, photograph by Anita J. McKenzie. BCA ref: AC2014/66/4B.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anita J. McKenzie

Anita J. McKenzie was born in the 1950s in London, England. Her parents were among the Windrush generation of immigrants invited to travel to the UK from Jamaica. Anita worked for many years in community arts in London and as a freelance photographer. Her work has been exhibited widely and internationally. She has recently returned to using her camera and has new projects in the pipeline. As she continues to work in the arts and heritage sectors, it is alongside her other passions and commitments in culinary arts and spirituality as an Interfaith Minister. Anita draws on her personal history to create heritage and identity-based projects which focus on what it means to be Black of dual African and Indian heritage from an ‘immigrant’ family in Britain. In 2005 Anita became the recipient of the Arts and Heritage Award from the European Federation of Black Women Business Owners, (EFBWBO), in recognition of her work.

Rhoda Adum Boateng

Rhoda Adum Boateng is Project Archivist for the McKenzie Heritage Picture Archive at Black Cultural Archives.