Bamboo Club

Down at the Bamboo Club is an ambitious programme co-ordinated by Picture This and lead artist Harold Offeh in partnership with the Georgian House Museum, the New Room and Bristol Black Archives Project. Three contemporary artists will work with community groups to develop films and events that will use the device of ‘re-enactment' to explore subjects such as community relations, the legacy of slave trading on the city's economy and communities, histories of division and solidarity, and the heritage of their own roles in the city today.

Taking the Bamboo Club Archive and conversations with its once owner Tony Bullimore as a starting point, Barby Asante will be working with a cross generational group to explore the Bamboo Club's social and cultural legacy as one of the first spaces in Bristol for social interaction between the Caribbean and Bristolian communities in the 60s and 70s.

Mark Wilsher is exporing the rich history of surmons and speeches written and performed by Methodist Preacher John Wesley at the New Room, Bristol in the 19th Century. Mark will work with Bristol's Methodist Community to develop works around Wesley's famous speech 'The Use of Money', drawing links with the Chapel's location in Broadmead and its use of historical and contemporary links with the city's trade.

At the Georgian House Museum Mandy McIntosh will be examining the life of the enslaved African Pero. She will be working with psychoanalysts and groups that support black men with mental health issues to question Pero's psychological and emotional state and consider contemporary issues around the over representation of black men in the mental health system.

The project is being funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Bristol Visual Arts Consortium.