This exhibition was curated by Rasheed Araeen, one of the founding fathers of the Black Art movement in this country. A few years later he was finally given the opportunity to put together his definitive exhibition, The Other Story, at the Hayward Gallery. Most of the artists in Third World Within were included in that exhibition.
I liaised with Rasheed on behalf of the Collective to help stage the show and, remembering how grateful he had been at the time to be offered space in Brixton, was surprised and disappointed to find that there was absolutely no mention of the Gallery or Third World Within in the catalogue essays in The Other Story – an ironic gesture, coming from someone who had talked so much about the iniquity of the establishment writing a history that specifically excludes certain people and events.
CATALOGUE
Artists in show:
Rasheed Araeen, Saleem Arif, David A Bailey, Sutapa Biswas, Avtarjeet Dhanjal, Uzo Egonu, Mona Hatoum, Merdelle J-Irving, Gavin Jantjes, Houria Niati, Keith Piper, Kumiko Shimizu