The power to represent

In conversations around ‘the Heritage’, the sad truth is that, more than 20 years after Stuart Hall’s seminal essay ‘Whose Heritage? Un-settling “The Heritage”, Re-imagining the Post-nation’, we’re still asking the same questions. What can we do to create an understanding of heritage that reflects the constituents of modern Britain? How do we address the reality that so many voices are missing from these conversations? And, when the power of the under-represented to make change is minimal, how do we challenge power imbalances within systems that are designed to maintain the status quo? Stuart Hall wrote that new ways of thinking lay in creative practices and, during the 2019 Whose Heritage? symposium in Newcastle upon Tyne, poets were invited to bring their voices into the room, to come at the issues of the day and inspire a new way of thinking. Their poems are reproduced here. This chapter also reflects on the author’s time working on Slate: Black.Arts.World., an ambitious artist development programme that sought to create meaningful and lasting change for people of colour working in the arts sector.