To be Black and British often feels like a point of contention in the UK. The quiet feeling of being “othered” is something many Black British people like myself have felt, and it's a message that is presented explicitly and subliminally throughout the course of our lives. Even the application of the hyphenated term ‘Black British’, used to denote a person’s dual heritage can imply an otherness that serves to divide, even as it intends to connect. 

Before I wrote this essay, I thought about Ini Kamoze’s 1984 song ‘England be nice’, his pleading tones conveyed a familiar sentiment: that being Black in Britain can be an frustrating experience of dealing with a society that is “big on ice” in spite of the many contributions we make (which often go unappreciated.)   

For many second and even third generation descendants of immigrants from former British Empire countries, we cannot overlook the violent and oppressive legacy of British colonialism in our homelands. How the concept of British supremacy was used to justify taking over lands, subjugating the countrymen and pillaging resources, and how social and economic underdevelopment led our relatives to seek refuge and opportunities in the UK. As Stuart Hall points out in Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands, for these generations, both the road back to an African or Caribbean identification and the road ahead to English belongingness appeared to have been closed to them. For this reason, the Black British community developed as an act of intransigence, formed in the face of isolation. Nevertheless, rejecting Britishness in this way doesn’t redress the conundrum of balancing multiple cultures internally and externally within a society that still implies that we can either be Black or we can be British, but rarely both. So how then can we navigate this tension point of both Blackness and Britishness? 

Raised in Peterborough, UK, to an English mother and an Irish-St. Lucian father, artist Rene Matić’s heritage and their queerness is given equal attention in their work, to explore the different dimensions of Blackness. In an introductory letter featured in their 2021 book, flags for countries that don’t exist but bodies that do, Rene proclaims that “Patriotism is just a declaration of love and devotion and pride for a thing.” It’s a simple statement, yet it’s one that reminds me of my own complicated relationship with patriotism. Affiliation with the patriotic aspects of “Britishness” is something that happens around me, but that I remain very distanced from. I consider distancing to be an act of self-preservation.  

I often joke with my friends and family that any British pride within me can only be witnessed during very brief and specific windows of time (i.e. World Cup/Euros/Olympics). In those moments, my love of sports and the ethnic diversity of athletes that represent the UK superseded my reservations about English symbolisms. However outside of those windows, associating myself with English motifs feels like consciously walking into a trap. It’s hard to ignore the pervasive feeling that Britishness is still conditional. We are accepted, for as long as we remain within the parameters of socially acceptable behaviour. By this, I mean that belonging is often predicated on meeting a certain standard of respectability, whether this is through the way we speak, our appearance or even how we display strong emotions. Instead of being accepted fully, we remain in a long-term probationary period. Additionally, the complexity of my family’s association with British society in some ways, has shaped my own view of Britishness.  

Having arrived in 1960s London on a scholarship with his wife (my grandmother) accompanying him, my grandfather’s temporary residence unexpectedly became a long-term stay when civil unrest in Nigeria turned into full-blown war in 1967. Political coups, then violent pogroms led to the secession of the Eastern region of Nigeria and the formation of Biafra, sparking three traumatic years of war. With three children and an elderly mother left behind in Nigeria, he had to witness the brutality of the genocide from afar without the modern luxury of fast communication methods (the Biafran genocide was the first humanitarian crisis to be broadcast internationally on television). He eventually managed to get his children out of Nigeria and get them to London with the help of the British Red Cross; however, he was unable to be with his mother for her final years alive. Guilt at being unable to help his people turned to fury as news started filtering out around the world about the extent of Britain’s involvement in the conflict. The trauma of conflict even as he was in London left an indelible scar on his conscience. For my grandparents, Britishness became entangled with conflict, consequence and premature displacement. The lived reality of colonial aftermath complicated any definitions of what it meant to belong under the British flag.  

Our names are one of the most important introductions to who we are. A lot can be learnt about a person by their name. As a fiercely political and outspoken man, he vowed never to give any of his following children English names. My mother, the first child to be born outside of Nigeria, received only Igbo names, my aunties, the same.  I remember something my grandfather once said, about how he used to have an English name, which he changed to an Igbo name because it “had no meaning to him.” His name was Chibuike, a name that meant “God is my strength”. To him this held significance, introducing him to the world as the Igbo man that he was. In his eyes, to bestow his children with English names was to affiliate them with a country that had treated his people so callously, it was his own way of rejecting Britishness, even as he still had to assimilate the family into 1960s/70s London. In this way, I was raised to treat Britishness as a supportive identity that adds to, but shouldn’t eclipse, my Nigerian identity.  

Rene’s latest project, AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH, is a continued quest to define their identity; incorporating the loved ones that make up their community and their understanding of the symbolisms of nationhood. The work is rooted in the intersectionality of Rene’s working-class, Black British Caribbean and queer backgrounds but flags play a prominent role in the project and the exhibition space. Around the room, various flags can be seen in their images, a floral decoration of a Jamaican flag placed across a lamppost memorial, several Palestine flags, taken from protest marches in London, are layered next to an image of the England flag hung on a window. A large banner welcomes you into the room, its message as clear and as striking as the placement of the flag itself: NO PLACE FOR VIOLENCE. It’s a tone setter, and that tone is one of love, not hostility. Couples captured in moments of tenderness, religious motifs representing love of an omnipresent figure, individuals living their authentic selves, friends enjoying moments of togetherness and joy, they’re all moments where people are free to love and to just be.   

The banner also references the most recent anti-immigration movements across England last year, where they took to “defending” the British identity by painting St. George’s crosses and tying St. George’s flags to buildings and lampposts. The campaign, “Operation Raise the Colours” claimed to be restoring national pride and patriotism. However, with members alleged to have ties to the English Defence League (EDL), it was seen by some as an expression of vigilantism aimed at intimidating asylum seekers and ethnic minorities. Even though around 16% of the UK population identified with an ethnic group other than White, the far-right claims that white Britain (and by proxy, national identity) is under threat of being left behind. It’s how political parties like Reform UK, have amassed a larger voter base and more Parliamentary and English council representation. Recently, I noticed a large England flag newly installed outside a house on my street. My initial reaction was one of mild irritation, I couldn’t help wondering what this signified about their political leanings. Was this something I ought to be concerned about? After all, my neighbourhood in Walthamstow, East London is populated with people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, and my street is no different. Were they “asserting their territory” or was this an innocent expression of their own national pride? I hated the fact that I was even having to contemplate this, I could feel my vigilance rising.  

It’s why Rene’s work is so intriguing to me. The prevalence of England flags caught my attention, but it was the photograph of their ‘Born British Die British’ tattoo etched onto their back that really held it. As I distance myself from symbols of English pride, Rene runs directly towards them. Where I considered these motifs unnecessary to embrace, Rene not only embraces these motifs, but studiously unpicks them. In getting this tattoo, Rene initiates a false inauguration into Britishness that questions who gets to claim that position and under what conditions. The phrase may be absolute, and it might not be fully available to them, but they don’t care. The tattoo reflects the will that generations of Black Britons have cultivated to speak back, to confront Britain about its own belief system and its history, one that has deeply shaped the nation even when the collective psyche tries to distance itself from its own brutality.  

In the seminal 1987 book, There Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack, Paul Gilroy insists that Britain’s nationalism and racism have been and continues to be routinely and symptomatically articulated together and so, should not be artificially separated. Therefore, when words like nationalism and patriotism are used synonymously, the boundaries between the two get blurred, allowing for hostile interpretations to be implied and exploited for political and social gain. When symbols such as flags, inherently tied to nationhood are also weaponised against Black Britons (as well as other communities of colour), the concept of patriotism becomes more of a provocation of our diverse cultural backgrounds. National pride starts to look and feel like pressure to be united under the English flag, even when this very same nation still struggles to see us as one. If flags are used as symbols of exclusion and anti-immigration under the guise of “patriotism”, Black British photographers are redefining the significance of flags in ways that do not seek to cause harm, but instead allows them to engage with British nationhood in a way that is inclusive of their ethnic heritage, and the cultural histories that come with it. 

For Rene, there is no gap between Britishness and Blackness: “They are inseparable, entwined, and always negotiating with one another. My work is about navigating that tension — whether through celebration, critique, or simply attention.” Their work around identity and belonging started long before AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH.   

‘flags for countries that don’t exist but bodies that do’ is a body of work taken between 2018 and 2021. Described as a love letter written in images, their documentation of both London and England more broadly is anti-symbolic, as the recipient is not this country or any other. The title came from a very simple feeling for them: flags aren’t real, but bodies are. How nations are constructed and how loyalty is demanded “at the expense of actual people” is a hierarchy they seek to push back on by interrogating the contradictions and instability of British identity itself.  

Providing a contemporary documentation of the classic landscapes and imagery of both rural and urban England, the work is reminiscent of the British documentary photographers of yesteryear, but it's devoid of the sentimentality and nostalgia that made them so renowned. This is a deliberate choice on Rene’s part. The aim to subvert these traditional markers of British nationhood is their way of rejecting the often-exclusionary elements of what was once a whiter, less diverse, and less tolerant country. Their work draws parallels with Ingrid Pollard’s; the landscapes may be devoid of people but in it there exists what Ingrid referred to (in a 2019 symposium) as a resonance of being. Within the traditional English landscapes and the staged portraits of Black people lies a deeper conversation about national identity, representation, ownership and belonging - particularly around who gets to belong where in this country. Where Ingrid challenges the perception that the Black British experience is solely an urban phenomenon, Rene demonstrates that the Black British experience is everywhere we seek it. The project highlights the communities we forge through care and camaraderie, that go beyond the physical borders that are assigned to us. With photographs of Rene’s friends, family, and relationships, we are invited into a more colourful world than the landscapes suggest. The buildings and the scenery may not have changed significantly over the last few decades, but there is no denying that demographically, Britain most certainly has changed. 

The images feel familiar; the architecture of the towns and cities we grew up in form the backdrop of the cultural integration that many families had to face to survive in the country.  It’s within these buildings that we carve our Black British lived experience and our community, the scenes a comforting reflection of our own lives: visiting an aunty who insists on fixing you a plate of rice and stew she just made, private conversations in the kitchen whilst someone leads the cooking, having spontaneous BBQs with friends – the music oscillating between Afrobeats, Bashment and RnB, that one friend who keeps a Jamaican flag tucked into their waistband when you go to a rave, hearing the sounds of Highlife music on a weekend afternoon at your grandparents’ house, being sat between an aunty’s knees whilst she cornrows your hair, family gatherings at home with plenty of snacks and tea (sometimes a Guinness too for the men - “the Nigerian bottles, please!”) , –  the warmth of these images extend beyond the film used. What we see is the warmth of the proverbial village, the amalgamation of African and Caribbean communities within Britain. It takes a village to raise a child, and in Rene’s images, the village is very much looking after Rene. The photographs are Rene’s act of gratitude towards them.   

Photographer Stéfan Weil’s examination of the Black British identity means creating work that challenges and reimagines who gets to embody Britishness in a way that makes both his adult and younger self feel seen. With a background that spans across multiple continents (his father is British-New Zealand, and his mother is French, Togolese and Ghanaian), he refuses to let himself be defined by either side of his heritage. Through symbols and historical references, Stéfan merges his diverse heritage whilst challenging the racial stereotypes that often reduce his personhood.  

His project “To Be King” reimagines Black-British people as medieval knights and dynastic rulers, taking inspiration from the stories and media that he enjoyed consuming as a child, whilst correcting the lack of characters of colour. In one image, a Knight on horseback holds a large Ghanaian flag representing his British and Ghanaian backgrounds. Stéfan describes the image as “a reflection that no matter what battles I face or who I fight for, I will always carry my roots with me.” The work highlights what is often denied or overlooked, that Black people have always existed in Britain’s history. 

Posing and performance takes precedent in his project. As writer Craig Owens (Beyond Recognition (1992) stated, posing is positioned as neither entirely active nor entirely passive, instead it corresponds to “the middle voice”, which focuses on the interiority of the subject. Taking the concepts of imposition and imposture, To Be King centralises the medieval armour, whereby the armour in itself can be a mirror that is indicative of both the misguided racial stereotypes about the strength and physicality of the Black body, as well as the psychological show of strength that we must hold on to as a form of protection and survival in a hostile world. This internal dilemma becomes externalised in the staging of poses with this armour. Stéfan’s recreation of scenes like the 1997 ‘King of New York’ photoshoot, individuals riding on horseback, or warmups on 400m racetracks are all performances. And yet, there is an element of his truth to these images – the burden of being pigeon-holed. When these racialised stereotypes, composed of racial myths and colonial histories, become a legitimisation for our dehumanisation, it leads to what Frantz Fanon referred to (in his 1952, Black Skin, White Masks publication) as the collapse of the self. 

I think back to my own experiences where my Black womanhood has been called into question, notably by non-Black people, and how these negative perceptions live within the body and mind. From autonomous subjects, we are reduced to objects, stripped of any neutrality that our bodies and personhood represent. Fascination becomes fear and projection when we fall outside of these assigned tropes, which in turn creates an atmosphere of certain uncertainty for both for us. This is where the stereotypes can go from being indirectly detrimental at best to being isolating, incriminating or even physically dangerous at worst. I think of these lines by Fanon: “I am given no chance. I am overdetermined from without. I am the slave not of the "idea" that others have of me but of my own appearance.” Our identities get imposed upon us externally because of our race, but Stéfan’s work is a reclamation of our agency, by this I mean the agency we have to determine and assert our own identities.  

Black Britishness is constantly in flux. The project is Stéfan’s way of exploring what it means to belong in a country that both exploits your culture whilst constantly interrogating your identity: “It's a strange relationship to have with British society, for those born here, who were raised within British society but the customs of the black diaspora, it's also a very difficult relationship. It's entering rooms where, despite having the same childhood as everyone else you're immediately viewed as other…You're all too aware of how either community thinks and their pitfalls but are stuck having to prove that you belong within both spaces for fear of losing access to either.”   

For Barbadian British photographer Myah Asha Jeffers this is a feeling that she knows all too well. Having grown up in Barbados, it was her British identity that left her feeling “othered”: “I oscillated between a desire to conform to Bajan culture, changing my accent and the way I moved through the world. But I was always intrigued by Black British culture - so I'd covertly study the music, fashion and language that emerged from the Black youth culture in London.” Despite returning to the UK around twenty years ago, there are elements of Black British culture that Myah still struggles to relate to, but her curiosity inspired her to explore the similarities and distinctions between diasporic community rituals.  

Photographing the rituals of Black Caribbean and African diasporic funerals in the UK began as a way for Myah to capture the obsequies of her grandmother’s funeral. The project, Returning to Soil, then evolved into documenting other funerals as a way of paying homage to the Windrush generation that defined its place in British society but is now steadily passing away. By focusing on the quiet moments of solitude, ancestral acts of ritualised service and poignant moments of connection, Myah’s photography captures what it means for Black communities in the UK to hold space for cultural traditions even in surroundings that are far from home. These rituals are a way to give deceased loved ones a send-off that honours the origins of their heritage – as one is born into the culture of their ancestors, so too do they return to their roots, physically and spiritually.  

Myah portrays Blackness and Britishness not as two separate entities, but instead as the bodies we live in, the bodies we co-exist with, the bodies that tell the stories of the cultures we were raised in. However, Myah’s work demonstrates that these tensions do not have to define us or even hinder us from living freely. With a community of care around us, we can ease the burden of these tensions and hold each other in both our histories and our cultural practices. In a post honouring her grandmother with the photographs from the funeral, Myah concluded by saying “To commune is to heal.” Maintaining a community of people around me is a lifeline I don’t take for granted. When our presence constantly faces interrogation, we can stand side by side, bonded by the lived experiences we share in the face of isolation and division, and the love we can extend to each other.   

As artists like Rene, Stéfan and Myah demonstrate, adhering to such rigid notions of Britishness simply highlights the inherent contradictions and instabilities of these boundaries. Symbols of nationhood can be deconstructed and redefined in ways that don’t prioritise exclusion and hostility, these symbols can encompass the complexities of the British identity in a way that is more inclusive.

Yet throughout these artists’ work, we see that the Black British identity is not an internal conflict for us to resolve. That being Black and British can be a space that allows us to embrace the multifaceted nature of our cultural makeup without forcing us to “choose a side and stick to it”. It reflects the histories witnessed, the communities built, the journeys made and the experiences lived by those that came before us. Black Britishness will continue to evolve as we continue to understand our history and embrace further expressions within our communities. Perhaps then, the question shouldn’t be whether Blackness and Britishness can coexist, but whether it is even necessary to continue to separate these identities in today’s Britain.