Studio/Chapple is excited to present ‘YARDSOUND’, a solo exhibition by Zinzi Minott. Minott is interested in what it means to have a body, the disruption of lineages and employment of the glitch as a tool to provoke critical reflections of Black Queer life. She is specifically interested in telling Caribbean stories, highlighting the histories of those enslaved during The Atlantic slave trade, the resulting migration of The Windrush Generation to the UK and links to contemporary life. She explores cultures around film, sound, sculpture and movement, with a specific interest in Black Sonic production, bass, mixing, remixing, vibration and dark space.

‘YARDSOUND’ centres around an installation that features three Dutch pots housing speakers. The pots hold cultural significance in the Caribbean and wider diaspora; a pillar of the home and an essential object in the kitchen - heritage and tradition in the domestic space. Their size and material also has a specific sonic capacity when used or hit, further explored through the soundscape they omit.

‘Fi-Dem’ is a continued exploration into Blackness and diaspora. It reveals Windrush community histories and Minott’s personal diasporic experience via fragmented audio and visual cues, highlighting the stories of enslaved peoples, the Windrush generation and their connections. The film begins with a sonic investigation by Minott, compiling a soundtrack and sampling Lovers Rock and bass-heavy Dub. This is merged with speeches and collected archival audio visuals from sources, Windrush generation arrival footage, field recordings and scenes from Notting Hill and Hackney carnival, political speeches from Dianne Abbott, David Lammy and Kier Starmer, and both the 1985 riots across England and the recent Southport race riots. This is combined with Minott’s own personal archive of family videos highlighting domestic life. These visuals are woven into digital stock images of nature, including bodies of water, reflecting the movement of people on Empire Windrush and in reference to the transatlantic slave trade.

This audiovisual montage embodies the veiled experiences specific to Caribbean genealogies, the uncomfortable internalised frameworks which carry with it the remains of colonial logics which separate notions of Blackness (and how people identify with it) from any realised and profound recognition of value. This complexity, of having pride in one’s Blackness yet understanding how it is positioned within the conditions of social and political death, disrupts the experience of being lulled by a melodic rhythmic piece.

‘Family Trade’ continues Minott’s relationship with personal archival material, and depicts the only photograph of the maternal side of her family. At first glance, the work presents a normal image of a family, with a perfect composition. Yet the image acts as a starting point to explore inherited trauma within legacies of Atlantic slave trade, and the dynamics this causes in Black families of this ancestral lineage.

Layered on the faces are ‘water triangles’ - a recurring motif in Minott’s practice. They act as a visual representation of the ‘triangular trade’, referencing the cartography of movement of enslaved peoples between Africa, the Caribbean and Americas, and Europe - with the imagery of water further emphasising the enforced displacement across the Atlantic. The act of directly imposing the image over the family’s faces is chilling, and a disturbing reminder of how this legacy continues to destroy notions of identity and humanity.

This exhibition aims to make this legacy contemporary. Rather than to dismiss this discourse as ancestralised and historicised, it represents the continued impact of the Atlantic slave trade in the present day. ‘YARDSOUND’ sounds and visualises the geographical, psychological and emotional destruction in the lives of people in the contemporary moment.