Rabiya Choudhry – ‘Give light and people will find the way (Ella Baker)’

Saturday 28 January 2023 19:05
Sunday 30 July 2023 20:05

Dennistoun Library, Shettleston Library and Glasgow Women's Library (map)

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Rabiya Choudhry’s new illuminated artworks for three East-End libraries have been created for places which hold significance for the artist. Their design is based on a painting by Choudhry, part of the artist’s ongoing project ‘Lost Lighting’ – a series of lighting artworks for public places intended to “act like a vigil in the dark”.

Rabiya Choudhry, ‘Give light and people will find the way (Ella Baker)’ (2022) installation view Glasgow Women’s Library 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Isobel Lutz-Smith.

‘Give light and people will find the way (Ella Baker)’ (2022) is the first Lost Lighting artwork to be realised in public space. Taking shape as illuminated signs, they repurpose Andrew Carnegie’s flaming torch motif; a feature found on many Carnegie library buildings as well as an emblem used in the bookplate for his own private library collection.

In Choudhry’s work, the torch is encircled with the words of African-American civil rights activist and organiser, Ella Baker (1903 – 1986) who worked to instigate societal change through individual and grassroots community empowerment. Baker’s words ‘give light and people will find the way’, are a manifestation of power for ordinary people, invoking a spirit of togetherness and inspiring hope for change.

Choudhry says, “Ella Baker came to me through light. Her words felt like a special gift after years of contemplating life, loss, and light during one of the most difficult times. Her life, actions, and words are hugely inspiring and articulate what I wanted to echo in these public artworks for libraries at a time where light comes at some cost and hope is hard to put into words.”

Choudhry’s illuminated artworks were accompanied by a fragment of narrative non-fiction from the award- winning journalist and author, Chitra Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy’s writing was available to pick up from April 2023 from Dennistoun Library, Shettleston Library and Glasgow Women’s Library for the duration of the project.

Rabiya Choudhry, ‘Give light and people will find the way (Ella Baker)’ (2022) installation view Dennistoun Library, 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Isobel Lutz-Smith.

Rabiya Choudhry, ‘Give light and people will find the way (Ella Baker)’ (2022) installation view Shettleston Library, 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Isobel Lutz-Smith.

Rabiya Choudhry, ‘Give light and people will find the way (Ella Baker)’ (2022) installation view Glasgow Women's Library, 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Isobel Lutz-Smith.

Rabiya Choudhry was born in Glasgow in 1982 to Scottish and Pakistani parents. Choudhry studied at Edinburgh College of Art to MA level, graduating in 2006. She lives and works in Edinburgh.

Choudhry’s work explores themes of identity and cultural displacement in contemporary British society with a darkly comedic approach. Her work expresses the complicated coupling of eastern and western cultures in richly vibrant autobiographical portrayals. Recent exhibitions include ‘TESTAMENT’, Goldsmiths CCA, London (2022); ‘ambi’, CCA Glasgow; and ‘Fabric of Society’, Glasgow International (both 2021). Choudhry’s work ‘Dad’ (2018) was acquired by the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow in 2020 and is now on permanent display there.

Chitra Ramaswamy is an author and journalist. Her latest book,‘Homelands: The History of a Friendship’(Canongate) is a work of creative non-fiction exploring her friendship with a 98-year-old German Jewish refugee called Henry Wuga and winner of the 2022 Saltire Non-Fiction Book

of the Year. Her first book, ‘Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy’ (2016) won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize.
She has contributed essays to Antlers of Water, Nasty Women, The Freedom Papers, The Bi:ble, and Message From The Skies. She writes for The Guardian, is the restaurant critic for The Times Scotland, and broadcasts for BBC radio.

Rabiya Choudhry,‘The Lost Ones’ (2021). Installation view, ‘TESTAMENT’, Goldsmiths CCA, 2022. Photo: Rob Harris. Courtesy of the artist.

About the Libraries

Dennistoun Library was opened in 1905. Designed by architect James Robert Rhind in Edwardian Baroque style, Dennistoun Library was one of the first Carnegie libraries to open in Glasgow. The building was refurbished between 1967 and 1968 by Robert Rogerson and Philip Spence, who were the architects of Hillhead Library.

Formerly Bridgeton Library, the building that is now home to Glasgow Women’s Library was also designed by James Robert Rhind and opened in 1906. The Women’s Library moved into the building in 2013, after the Bridgeton library relocated to The Olympia by Bridgeton Cross in 2012. Glasgow-based architectural studio Collective Architecture redeveloped the building which reopened in 2015. The Women’s Library is the only Accredited Museum in the UK dedicated to women’s lives, histories and achievements.

Shettleston Library was designed by architect Thomas Gilchrist Gilmour and opened in 1925. Situated in Glasgow’s East End, the library is built of red brick and blonde sandstone and features a stained glass portrait of Saint Mungo.