Mykaell Riley will be speaking at the Museums Association (MA) conference: The Joy of Museums, as part of a panel titled ‘Beyond the Baseline’.

Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music at the British Library was the first major exhibition to document the 500-year musical journey of African and Caribbean people in Britain. It celebrated music as a form of entertainment and vehicle for community, as well as a source of liberation, protest and education. Each section of the exhibition featured new soundscapes, artworks and films created by artists and community collectives from around the UK, including Leeds.

Join this session to hear how the groundbreaking exhibition was created and what was learnt from its community engagement projects. Speakers discuss how the exhibition was a continuation of an important conversation about African and Caribbean musical heritage in Britain and how that might develop in the future. They also explore how the wider history of African and Caribbean presence, culture and creativity in the UK was represented in the exhibition.

Speakers include Aleema Gray, the lead curator of the exhibition, and associate professor Mykaell Riley, exhibition co-curator and a founding member of the British roots reggae band Steel Pulse. Mykaell is also the director of the Black Music Research Unit at the University of Westminster. They are joined by British Library community interpretation manager Halina Kaszycka-Williams, and Leeds-based writer, artist and performer Khadijah Ibrahiim, who was lead curator for the Leeds edition of Beyond the Bassline.

Find out more here.