Black Joy Day TMiB X Stories of Our Sounds

Led by Jacqueline Springer, Lead Curator of The Music Is Black: A British Story (TMiB), this opening session explores the exhibition as a celebration of over 12 decades of Black music-making in Britain and the creativity, resilience and joy embedded within it. Through key objects, sounds and stories, Jacqueline will introduce the exhibition’s central themes, tracing how Black British music has shaped cultural life across generations and transformed the nation’s artistic landscape.

Jacqueline expands this narrative through four acts, and eight music genres by examining the communities, movements, music-makers, and exchanges, that nurtured genres ranging from lovers rock and 2 tone, to jungle, grime and beyond. Rather than presenting music as entertainment alone, the exhibition reveals it as a powerful force for identity, belonging and collective expression. Through this lens, you are invited to consider Black music as both a record of lived experience and a source of imagination, innovation, design, and joy, before encountering the exhibition itself.

Following your visit to TMiB exhibition, you will join this immersive gathering exploring photographs as living carriers of sound, memory, and cultural knowledge. Through listening, conversation, and shared reflection, you will consider what photographs can reveal beyond the visual: the music, voices, stories, and social worlds they contain.

Drawing on the experiences of African and Caribbean communities in Britain, the session revisits the record shops, blues dances, clubs, sound clashes, homes, and streets where friendships were forged, identities affirmed, and joy made visible. Together, we will explore how everyday acts of gathering, listening, and storytelling shaped cultural life between 1970 and 2000.

Using the photographs you bring to the session as prompts, including those featured in the exhibition and in the V&A collections, you are invited to share memories, make connections across generations, and reflect on the power of Black music, creativity, and community. Discover how stories of our sounds continue to resonate as archives of resilience, belonging, cultural pride, and Black joy.

It is advisable to bring a packed lunch. Beverages are available at the E5 Bakery

Please note, that you will be walking and standing for extended periods of time in TMiB exhibition – a limited number of museum chairs will be available on the day.

joy is an act of resistance….Poet Toi Derricotte.

 
Black joy is a force. It lifts us through the hardest times and gives us the courage to speak with one voice. In its simplicity, it is radical because choosing joy is an act of resistance and resilience. Through Black joy, we honour our history, our culture, and our community. We come together to share, to listen, and to support one another especially in spaces that are perceived to not always feel welcoming. Black joy is not just a feeling. It's emotional well-being. It regenerates the soul.  Janet Browne, Senior Producer Africa and Diaspora.

A detailed programme will follow soon.

This event is part of the wider celebration of The Music Is Black: A British Story Exhibition.

In collaboration with the Black Gallery Visitor Network (UK).