The Wick Culture - Interview Broadcaster & Curator June Sarpong The Wick Culture - Interview Broadcaster & Curator June Sarpong
Monday Muse

Interview Broadcaster & Curator June Sarpong

Photography
Kofi Paintsil
30 October 2023
Photography
Kofi Paintsil
30 October 2023
The broadcaster June Sarpong OBE has worn many hats in her 20-year career, from TV presenter and entrepreneur to author and Director of Diversity at the BBC. This year she has taken on the role of curator with the same boundless energy, opening an exhibition on both sides of the Channel.

“Filling In The Pieces In Black” is a group show that redresses the narrow view of Black history shaped by the colonial lens, instead offering an expansive and emotive perspective that focuses on the power of visual story telling to redefine our understanding of the past. Spanning Maruani Mercier gallery in Brussels (25 October 2023 – 13 January 2024) and Saatchi Gallery in London (31 October – 26 November 2023), the exhibition encompasses international artists, including Larry Amponsah, Mickalene Thomas, Cornelius Annor and Yinka Ilori.

“My aim is to help present a representation of the many strands that make up the rich tapestry of the Black experience,” she says. Here, we discover what makes her tick.

THE WICK:   If you could own any piece of artwork, what would it be and why? 

June Sarpong:   Lenny Kravitz’s Jean-Michel Basquiat painting is quite something! Or anything by Barkley L Hendricks. I had a chance to buy something a few years ago and I didn’t. I still regret it to this day.

TW:   They say that history is written by the victors. How does your exhibition Filling in the Pieces in Black aim to redress this imbalance, and reveal the truth about Black history?

JS:   What I’m most proud of with this show is the way it conveys so much of the humanity of the Black experience, and challenges the idea of a single narrative. It focuses on the splendour of being human through the beautiful lens of Blackness.

TW:   Tell us about one of the most powerful or surprising narratives told by an artwork in the show.

JS:   I love all of the works in both the Brussels show at Maruani Mercier gallery and the London show at Saatchi Gallery, but I think the Radcliffe Bailey piece, The Ocean Between (2019), in London is truly extraordinary. It’s a seminal work that explore the journey of the Middle Passage when enslaved Africans were taken across the Atlantic to the Americas. You can’t help but be entranced when looking at it.


TW:   What achievement are you most proud of in your career to date?

JS:   I don’t think I have one. I like to live in the moment.

“What I’m most proud of with this show is the way it conveys so much of the humanity of the Black experience”

TW:   Is there a single exhibition that you’ve visited in the past that has changed your world view or left an indelible mark on you in some way?

JS:   I LOVED Soul of A Nation at the Tate in 2017. That show definitely did an excellent job of “Filling In The Pieces In Black”.

TW:   Who is your ultimate Monday Muse?

JS:   Oprah Winfrey. She is a woman who has comfortably owned her own power and humanity with equal measure. I think that she’s one of the best examples of balanced leadership that we have in the world.

TW:   What’s your best piece of advice to pass on?

JS:   Be thankful. It’s the best way to be happy.

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