In this CULTIVATE Case Study, we share Creative Practitioner Shona Inatimi’s work in collaboration with Black and Black Biracial women in Dundee.

CULTIVATE is a regional leadership programme for Creative Practitioners and local communities to collaboratively explore new ways of embedding creativity at the core of grassroots collective action for climate justice, across the Tay region.

We launched the programme in summer 2021 with a first round of Creative Practitioners commissions, and announced our second cohort of Creative Practitioners in February 2023. We also shared some insights and reflections in July 2023, highlighting some of the ambitions and impacts of this pilot initiative.

This case study collates the work of Creative Practitioner Shona Inatimi. These case studies act as an archive for each CULTIVATE project, aiming to share the learnings of each practitioner, demonstrate the impacts of individual projects, and provide concrete examples of the benefits of working with creative practitioners on community-based projects.

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Project

Creative Practitioner: Shona Inatimi

Shona Inatimi is a recent graduate from DJCAD in Fine Art (2021). She is currently exploring using her practice as a space for storytelling and creating narratives through a visual language and portraiture, using the making of art as a way of communicating and connecting with others.

She recently had her first solo exhibition ‘See You Glow’ at the Federation Gallery (2022). Shona painted a mural at the Dundee Women’s International Centre as part of the Open/Close Dundee Stobswell Door Mural Trail (2018), and painted recycling bins for the ‘Waste of Space’ project (2019) on Perth Road.

Working with communities is an important part of Shona’s practice. She has worked with disadvantaged groups to encourage them to express themselves through art making. With the charity Front Lounge, she helped initiate a project called JAMD (2018) for the year of young people. In the summer 2017 she went to China to volunteer alongside students and artists to provide creative opportunities.

Project ambitions:

Shona’s project aimed to capture the ‘positive essence’ of Black and Black Biracial women, through intimate conversations, making art together and painting their portrait – unveiling their strengths and aspirations for their future-self.

Shona wanted to make meaningful and thoughtful connections with other women through the making of art, using her practice as a platform to share stories and amplify voices of those who are usually marginalised. She was also keen to build community and new connections as a way of reimagining our world, and finding their voice as Black and Black Biracial women.

Shona said: “I’m excited to get making alongside communities in Dundee and see what conversations spark through the making of art. As well as providing a space for people to share their stories and amplify their voices, I want to find my own place in this conversation. I’m also excited about building community and making more connections. This project can go in many directions and I’m excited to see what people get out of this opportunity.”

As one of two smaller commissions in Dundee, Shona’s project was developed to support her self-development as a creative practitioner and was part of our decision to create additional commissions to work with Black people and People of Colour with the aim of supporting emerging and underrepresented creative practitioners and creating greater social/environmental impact in the city.

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Process

Within the comfort of her own studio in the Hilltown, Shona created an intimate space for Black and Black Biracial women who grew up in Scotland to be their authentic selves – Shona described it as “a space where we don’t have to perform, compared to how we interact with white spaces.”

Through a series of one-to-one encounters and making together as a way to initiate conversations that are otherwise difficult, Shona and her muses explored themes around the importance of care, of ourselves and others, and how that reflects back to our communities and environment.

Extracts from conversations between Shona Inatimi and her model Saoirse Amira Anis:

“…the thing that stresses me out the most is the lack of accountability of big institutions and governments. I’m at the point where I’m actually really resentful of all of the changes to our lives that regular individuals are expected to make. Meanwhile… we’re digging for more oil and have new oil deals while the planet is literally on fire. And so the more this happens, the more I’m like…  I believe in collective action and I think that we all have a responsibility to act generously and with care towards the planet and not to be wasteful.”

“I’m taking time to rub nourishing oils into my skin, into this body that keeps me alive… reminding myself and really feeling that this is care, this is caring for myself.”

This end of project film was created by CULTIVATE Storyteller Lu Kemp, in collaboration with participants and each Creative Practitioner lead. Lu followed their work from the start and captured their voices to tell the story of each project’s ambitions, outcomes and impacts.

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Outcomes

As well as building confidence and relationships, Shona’s commission resulted in two portraits which formed part of the Dear Earth: Creating Hope in a Climate Crisis exhibition organised in partnership with fellow CULTIVATE creative practitioners Vinishree Verma and Amadu Khan. The exhibition was a showcase event celebrating the work created and questions raised by women of diverse ethnic backgrounds from across Dundee.

For Shona, her paintings also formed part of a larger conversation:

• Helping Black and Black Biracial women discover/realise what they hold within themselves, and reflecting it back to them and their communities, giving them the opportunity to take ownership of their story and realise they’ve got something interesting to say and offer.

• Giving Black and Black Biracial women the space and time to imagine a version of themselves that they wouldn’t usually have the chance or give themselves the permission to imagine. Reimagining the future comes hand in hand with the ability to see yourself in new spaces.

Reflection from Shona:

“It’s important to find power within ourselves and care is instrumental in that journey. Conversations surrounding care are essential for what makes a space safer for women of colour, to find agency and feel empowered.

We think about care as in how caring for yourself is a way of caring for others. How do you instigate care in your daily lives? What does that look like? Do we feel cared for in our local community?”

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Led by Creative Dundee over three years, CULTIVATE brought together creative practitioners and community groups across the Tay region to explore climate justice in a practical and meaningful way.

CULTIVATE is part of Culture Collective, a network of participatory arts projects across Scotland, shaped by local communities alongside artists and creative organisations. Funded by the Scottish Government through Creative Scotland.