Advertisement
UK markets closed
  • FTSE 100

    7,952.62
    +20.64 (+0.26%)
     
  • FTSE 250

    19,884.73
    +74.07 (+0.37%)
     
  • AIM

    743.26
    +1.15 (+0.15%)
     
  • GBP/EUR

    1.1711
    +0.0017 (+0.15%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2624
    +0.0002 (+0.02%)
     
  • Bitcoin GBP

    55,388.58
    -367.69 (-0.66%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • S&P 500

    5,254.35
    +5.86 (+0.11%)
     
  • DOW

    39,807.37
    +47.29 (+0.12%)
     
  • CRUDE OIL

    83.11
    -0.06 (-0.07%)
     
  • GOLD FUTURES

    2,254.80
    +16.40 (+0.73%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,369.44
    +201.37 (+0.50%)
     
  • HANG SENG

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • DAX

    18,492.49
    +15.40 (+0.08%)
     
  • CAC 40

    8,205.81
    +1.00 (+0.01%)
     

Selma director Ava DuVernay aims to ‘change minds’ with Black Lives Matter art exhibition

Getty Images
Getty Images

Selma director Ava DuVernay says she wants to “change minds” with an exhibition bringing the Black Lives Matter movement into the heart of London’s art world.

The 48-year-old, whose films include the Oscar-nominated 2014 civil rights drama and Disney’s A Wrinkle In Time, has teamed up with Mayfair gallery Signature African Art for the show. It features paintings and sculptures by 13 African artists and honours George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, whose killings at the hands of police in the US inspired the BLM movement.

Mr Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis shocked the world when footage emerged of a white police officer kneeling on his neck pinning him to the floor, is the subject of nine separate paintings which feature some of the things he said during his last moments, including when he told officers: “I can’t breathe”.

ADVERTISEMENT

Another painting shows Breonna Taylor, who was shot dead during a bungled police raid at her home in Kentucky. A share of proceeds from the works will go to their families.

DuVernay, pictured, who also wrote and directed drama When They See Us, about a group of black men falsely convicted of raping and attacking a jogger in New York’s Central Park, said she believed the artists could shed new light on the names behind the headlines.

She said: “There is a difference between reading a newspaper and getting the facts of the Breonna Taylor case and getting another side of it in an artist’s emotional and expressive interpretation of her and her life. We have to change the stories that we tell around these cases and change the attitudes and artists can change minds, can help you think about things in different ways.” DuVernay said she did not see any conflict between art and activism, adding: “In order to make art you have to have an imagination and activists do the same thing, because they imagine a world that isn’t there.”

Say My Name, presented by Ava DuVernay, is at Signature African Art from tomorrow until November 28

Read more

Ava DuVernay backs David Oyelowo’s claims over Academy votes and Selma

'Grand jury not offered homicide charges' in Breonna Taylor case

Protests break out after George Floyd suspect released on bail