Contested culture as change-maker: The collaborative approach to displaying the toppled statue of Edward Colston (2022)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S., & Barnett, R. (2022, May). Contested culture as change-maker: The collaborative approach to displaying the toppled statue of Edward Colston. Presented at Museum & Heritage Show 2022, The Olympia, London

The toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol in June 2020 made international headlines. Professor Shawn Sobers of the UWE Bristol and ‘We are Bristol History Commission’, and Ray Barnett Head of Collections & Archives at Bristol Museums,... Read More about Contested culture as change-maker: The collaborative approach to displaying the toppled statue of Edward Colston.

The future of visual anthropology in the wake of Black Lives Matter: A dialogue among Shawn Sobers, Deborah Thomas and Sireita Mullings (2021)
Journal Article
Mullings, S., Sobers, S., & Thomas, D. (2021). The future of visual anthropology in the wake of Black Lives Matter: A dialogue among Shawn Sobers, Deborah Thomas and Sireita Mullings. Visual Anthropology Review, 37(2), 401-421. https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12253

As a discipline, anthropology has long been subject to the scrutiny of critical race theorists and to questions of ethical practice with regard to ethnicity and representation. This dialogue features critical Black visual anthropologists discussing t... Read More about The future of visual anthropology in the wake of Black Lives Matter: A dialogue among Shawn Sobers, Deborah Thomas and Sireita Mullings.

'Don't Wander Off' and other rules to ignore (2021)
Book Chapter
Sobers, S. (2021). 'Don't Wander Off' and other rules to ignore. In Key Work. Bristol: Besides Press

This article explores the complexities of navigating the city as a photographer during the period of the covid pandemic lockdowns. The article is a response to Chris Hoare's photobook Keywork, in which he took photographs around Bristol during lockdo... Read More about 'Don't Wander Off' and other rules to ignore.

Which of us photographs? (2021)
Book Chapter
Sobers, S. (2021). Which of us photographs?. In Cohort. Frome: Cohort

How will future historians interpret how the 2020/2021 lockdowns impacted photographic aesthetics? Such a study would likely be done best by scholars who are not yet even born. Practitioners and scholars of today are too close to the moment to be abl... Read More about Which of us photographs?.

A Call For A Black Bristol Filmmakers Archive (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, November). A Call For A Black Bristol Filmmakers Archive. Presented at Afrika Eye Festival 2019, Watershed, Bristol

In this introduction to the Sudanese documentary film 'Talking About Trees', Sobers brings the storyline to a Bristol context. He charts Bristol's own history of professional Black filmmakers, and argues that making films alone is no longer enough.... Read More about A Call For A Black Bristol Filmmakers Archive.

The politics and myth of the Untold Story: From personal liberatory practice to decolonial discourse (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, November). The politics and myth of the Untold Story: From personal liberatory practice to decolonial discourse. Paper presented at Decolonial methodologies: Arts, Politics, Europe, Body-politics Research Unit, Aarhus University, Denmark

This talk will discussed a journey in creative practice and deconstructing motivations of making - from the personal to the political and the blurs inbetween. Sobers discussed modes of using creative culture to challenge to the colonial centre, and e... Read More about The politics and myth of the Untold Story: From personal liberatory practice to decolonial discourse.

When the Prophet was angry with the Emperor: On Marcus Garvey's critique of Haile Selassie I, and the aligned legacy of both their logic (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, August). When the Prophet was angry with the Emperor: On Marcus Garvey's critique of Haile Selassie I, and the aligned legacy of both their logic. Presented at Do you Remember? Commemoration for Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Kuumba Centre, Bristol

Discussing the challenging moment in 1937 when Marcus Mosiah Garvey strongly criticised Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie for moving to Bath in the UK, to rally for support for Ethiopia's liberation from Mussolini's fascist invasion. Garvey attacked t... Read More about When the Prophet was angry with the Emperor: On Marcus Garvey's critique of Haile Selassie I, and the aligned legacy of both their logic.