A COMMANDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION OF COLONISATION

THE ARTIST YINKA SHONIBARE was awarded the prestigious CBE in 2019. In case you do not know what these three letters stand for, it is ‘Commander of the British Empire’ – not that Britain has much of, if any, empire left to boast of. For much of its long existence, places in the British Empire witnessed many injustices and inhumanities. This was especially true before the abolition of the slave trade in the early 19th century. Yinka Shonibare, who was born in London in 1962 and brought up between that city and Lagos in Nigeria, uses his artistic skills to explore Britain’s lengthy history of imperialism imaginatively and creatively. Even without knowing that he does this, his art works are in themselves visually exciting and fascinating to the viewer. The pieces on display until the 1st of September 2024 at the Serpentine South gallery in Kensington Gardens are well worth seeing both for their inherent beauty and for the way that Shonibare expresses his interpretation of Britain’s colonial past and its legacy.

For more information about the exhibition, please visit: www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/yinka-shonibare-cbe-suspended-states/