The Blueprint

About:

The British Library commissioned Amber Akaunu, a Liverpool-born Nigerian-German filmmaker and artist, to engage creatively with the Gilroy archive. Inspired deeply by the archive, Amber  produced a zine and an accompanying film, both titled 'The Blueprint', that explores the idea that Black women, and their archives, are the blueprint which Black women in the present, and future, build on.

Poem featured in film:

Blue is in our tone, style and hue,

blue held us together in our mother's womb.

Then blue scattered us like the scats of Sarah Vaughn.

Blue is the magic in our hair,

blue are the oceans that carried our ancestors here,

blue is the infinity of the sky,

blue are the tears from the hardest goodbyes,

blue are the seas that parted in two,

making the impossible possible and guiding others through.

Blue is consistent, sincere and cool:

The attributes of Black women like me and you,

the attributes of Black women like Beryl and Jessica too.

Black women are the Blueprint.

Black women are THE BLUEPRINT.

So, we build on the blueprinted legacy of our Black sisters like a child builds with lego,

and one day our lego tower will meet the limitless blue sky.

By Amber Akaunu