A Right of an Exile, Kedisha Coakley (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Hepworth Wakefield)

In this special episode, artist Kedisha Coakley joins EMPIRE LINES live at the Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire, connecting their work from Jamaican and Black diasporic communities across the UK, with their research into sculptor Ronald Moody, uncovering shared interests in Ancient Egypt, indigenous Caribbean cultures, and questions of restitution.

Born in Brixton, and based in Sheffield, Kedisha Coakley’s practice spans sculpture, glassmaking, and wallpaper printed with blocks of braided hair. Commissioned for an exhibition about Ronald Moody, one of the most significant artists working in 20th century Britain, their new installation is set between his large-scale figurative wood sculptures from the 1930s, and post-war experimentations with concrete and resin casting. From Kedisha’s bronze afro-combs influenced by historic Taino cultures, we journey from objects held in the British Museum, to mahogany relief sculptures by major influences like Edna Manley.

With audio transcripts, we discuss Moody’s BBC radio broadcasts for Calling the West Indies produced by Una Marson, particularly ‘What is called Primitive Art?’ (1949). Kedisha shares Moody’s interest in primitivism, present in ancient Egyptian, Greek, Indian, and ‘oriental’ Chinese cultural forms, as well as Gothic and Renaissance works from Western/Europe. We look at photographs from Kedisha’s studio, exploring ‘African masks’ in the work of European modernists like Man Ray and Pablo Picasso, and the often marginalised role of religion and spirituality in Black and diasporic art practices. Kedisha also details her wider practice in ‘Horticultural Appropriation’, working with breadfruit, flowers, plants, and the natural environment, connecting with Moody’s description of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains and sea.

We consider Moody’s place in British art history, drawing from his contemporaries Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein, and Elizabeth Frink, as well as the group known as the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), of which Moody was a founding member.. As a self-described ‘mature student’, we look at Kedisha’s pursuit of independent, adult education, the role of market cultures and fashion, and the work of women taking care of history.

This episode was recorded live at Ronald Moody: Sculpting Life, an exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire, in October 2024. The exhibition runs until 3 November 2024: hepworthwakefield.org/whats-on/kedisha-coakley-and-empire-lines-live-podcast-recording/

Hear more about Kedisha’s work around ‘Horticultural Appropriation’ with Ashish Ghadiali, curator of Against Apartheid (2023) at KARST in Plymouth: pod.link/1533637675/episode/146d4463adf0990219f1bf0480b816d3

For more about the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), listen to curator Rose Sinclair in the episode on Althea McNish’s Batchelor Girl’s Room (1966/2022), recreated at the William Morris Gallery in London: pod.link/1533637675/episode/953b78149a969255d6106fb60c16982b

On post-war ‘British’ art and sculpture, read about Egon Altdorf: Reaching for the Light at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, in gowithYamo: