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The Wake by Khaleb Brooks

“The intention behind this work is not just to remember individual stories and hopes, but also counteract the history of forgetting embedded in colonialism.

In the Museum of London Docklands, there's a list of ships, captains, owners and destinations that participated in the slave trade, but no names of enslaved individuals. Victims are often excluded from archives.”

Computer-generated image with a traditional building in the background and a large, bronze colour sea shell, with a low ramp going into the centre, with a figure walking up the ramp. image with a traditional building in the background and a large, bronze colour sea shell, with a low ramp going into the centre, with a figure walking up the ramp.

Inspired by the shape of a cowrie shell, The Wake represents the perseverance, prosperity and beauty rooted in African and African diasporic heritage.

The cowrie shell was used as currency across Africa, and later adopted by European traders as currency. The shell quickly became an exchange means for enslaved individuals, positioning it as a stark symbol of slavery and exploitation of human life.

Influential abolitionist and formerly enslaved author, Oluadah Equiano, describes being sold for 172 Cowrie shells in his memoir. Here I am repositioning the cowrie as a multifaceted symbol of resilience.

At nearly 7 metres high, this bronze sculptural installation is designed to enter and pause within. There are two accessible entrances, marked by bronze sugar loaf mould sculptures. These represent the sugar industry and its slave labour dependence.

The ramp is engraved with new poems from poet Yrsa Daley Ward. Inside, the walls list enslaved people's names, as well as blank lists acknowledging those we could not identify.  

Overall, the work is a remembrance vessel, where rest and refuge are possible. Where we can listen to our hearts and experience a joy that allows grieving space.

A picture of inside The Wake, a bronze-coloured art piece by Khaleb Brooks. It shows bronze rods hanging from the ceiling, with a crowd gathered below
A picture of a wall inside The Wake, a bronze-coloured art piece by Khaleb Brooks. It shows bronze rods hanging from the ceiling, with a crowd gathered below
A picture of slave faces on a wall within The Wake, a bronze-coloured art piece by Khaleb Brooks. It shows bronze rods hanging from the ceiling, with a crowd gathered below

Satellite artwork and engagement

A mock-up of the outside wall of The Wake, a bronze-coloured, teardrop-shaped art piece by Khaleb Brooks

Satellite artworks will be fibreglass, human-sized cowrie shells.

Each shell will measure about 1.7m tall, acting as public seating for one person. The intention is to embed a notion of rest, creating functional objects that add to the city's social landscape.

Communities will have the chance to decorate and design imagery for each shell, and the shells will connect to a larger programme via various artist-led workshops.  

 

The Wake is not just a static site, but one of activation. 

I envisage performances and events as part of a year-long launch programme – including cross-diaspora readings, artist performances and live music.

A girl stood next to an indoor wall of The Wake, a bronze sculpture by Khaleb Brooks

Meet the artist: Khaleb Brooks

A picture of the artist Khaleb Brooks. He is wearing a brightly-coloured jacket, and sitting with his hands clasped over his right knee. He is mixed-race and has a single earring in his right ear.

Khaleb Brooks uses archives, collective memory and personal experience to create art that offers new perspectives on history and healing. In 2023, he performed at Onassis AiR in Athens, completed a research Fellowship in Brazil, and participated in two Los Angeles-based residencies.

In 2021 and 2022, Brooks completed a year-long research residency at Liverpool's International Slavery Museum, which led to solo exhibition Jupiter’s Song. This immersive installation included sculpture, video and tapestries, offering a “homegoing” to unnamed souls that lost their lives in the transatlantic slave trade's Middle Passage. 

In 2019, Brooks was a Tate Modern artist in residence, featuring (and performing) at the Venice Biennale, as part of Shu Lea Chaeng’s 3x3x6 at the Taiwan Pavilion.

Selected exhibitions and performances include: 

  • Jupiter's Song, International Slavery Museum, Liverpool 2022  

  • Can I Get A Witness, Gazelli Art House, London, 2022 

  • Decriminalised Futures, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, 2022  

  • Celebrating Stonewall 50 years (Commission), Schwules Museum, Berlin 2019  

  • Rememory: Ritual Blackness and Beyond, WE-DEY, Vienna, Austria 2018 

  • Khaleb Brooks: Art is Revolution- Gentrification, Paper Box, Brooklyn 2014

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