Rudy Loewe

State Secrets & Black Power: Transforming Archival Research into Painting

Panel: Archives

Records from the Information Research Department (IRD), now held at The National Archives, reveal Britain’s attempts to dismantle Caribbean Black resistance movements during the 1960s and 70s. Artist Rudy Loewe creates paintings to expose the IRD, a once top-secret unit within the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, responsible for creating propaganda about global resistance movements and anti-communist states. Loewe discusses how they envision this history in their painting as a way of spotlighting the continuation of British colonial legacies in the present.

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Rudy Loewe lives and works in London, UK. Their artistic practice responds to the state violence that shapes our remembering of history and the intentional silences in institutional archives. They form narratives and make space for different kinds of knowledges by inviting in those voices suppressed by the dominant retelling of history. Through painting, Loewe unravels British government operations dismantling Caribbean Black Power movements during the 1960s and ‘70s as a part of their ongoing PhD research.