Launch of 'Public Library UK Vol 1, After Kenneth Little' by Richard Hylton

Richard Hylton will be joined by Dr Althea Rivas (chair) Tom Denman (art critic) Paul Nataraj (artist) to discuss their responses to the project.

Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little is a participatory spoken-word work. Thirty-seven volunteers read consecutive excerpts from the American sociologist Leonard Bloom’s introduction to the 1972 edition of Kenneth Little’s Negroes in Britain: A Study of Racial Relations in English Society. Bloom argued that Little’s book brought hitherto unseen nuance to the study of immigration. It was originally published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1948, a year now fabled as the beginning of the ‘Windrush generation’. Little’s study, however, focused on the impact of immigration on Butetown, the dock area of Cardiff, Wales during the interwar years of the twentieth century. Nicknamed Tiger Bay, this district was noted for its multiethnic population, drawn from Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, and for being the epicentre of notorious race riots in 1919.

With the practice of anthropological field recordings in mind, Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little considers, not histories of societies and cultures of faraway people and faraway lands, but instead those closer to home. Drawing from a formidable archive of literature, Public Library UK Vol I excavates histories, terminologies, and observations which are both archaic and prescient. Perennially reprised, centuries old anxieties around immigration and race relations, often odious and futile, are given new perspectives here. In Public Library UK Vol I the non-professional readers deliver passages modulated by varying accents and intonations. Although not visible, they are as much the subject of the work as the words they utter.

About

Devised and produced by Richard Hylton, Public Library UK Vol I, After Kenneth Little is a limited-edition work, produced as two 140g vinyl LPs presented in an extensively illustrated gatefold design including illuminating liner notes, Public Library: Some Considerations by Eddie Chambers and, Sonic Fictions of Unsettlement by Salomé Voegelin. Eddie Chambers is David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professor in Art History, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin, and Salomé Voegelin is Professor of Sound at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, UK. Sound Editing: Oliver Schmidt, Photoshop Images: Reuben Thurnhill. Design: Urjuan Toosy.

Attending the event

This event is free and open to all, but registration is required. Please register via the link at the top of this page.

Image: Public Library UK Vol 1, After Kenneth Little, 2024 A limited edition spoken-word double vinyl LP about immigration and its legacies in Britain. 80 minutes. front cover: After Kenneth Little, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948, (2018) neon tubing, perspex, steel cables and transformers, 133cm x 99cm © Richard Hylton