Twinning cities across continents

This week, the Sunday Guardian features academic, reviewer, and artist Dr Holly Eva Ryan. Of mixed Caribbean (Guyanese) and Irish heritage, Dr Ryan, a reader (assistant professor) in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London, is drawn to projects that “disrupt political orders and build kinder worlds”.

A founding member of the Artistic Activism Research Co-Lab (AARC), Dr Ryan’s research, art, and writing centre around “collective memory, political emotions, solidarity politics, and missing narratives in international development”. Intrigued by the global criss-crossing connections between people and cities in an increasingly divided world, in February last year, Dr Ryan co produced, contributed to and curated a mixed media exhibition held at the Queen Mary University in London. Using the twinning examples between Speightstown in Barbados and Reading in the UK during the Windrush years, the multi-disciplinary exhibition included Dr Ryan’s art alongside work she co-produced with Minute Works Design.

In this exhibition, Dr Ryan says, “intercontinental constellations of friends came together to press for social change” for a more equitable, peaceful and connected world. The following description of the exhibition by Dr Ryan describes the concept of the exhibition twinning in full.

“Art across continents helps us envision alternative possibilities for collective futures and ways of doing politics.  Genre-busting creatives carry us to other worlds. I am inspired by people who have worked across genres, disciplines, territories and creative mediums to explore the depths and complexity of the human experience, such as Frida Kahlo, Ina Césaire, Gloria Anzaldúa, Khal Torabully, and Bell Hooks. I like to work between mediums because the written word and the visual allow us to express ourselves differently and make distinct and different kinds of impressions.

Academic writing has a particular form: it is a method of argumentation designed to lead the reader to buy into a specific claim or truth. While art can take that sort of unifying or didactic form, it can also operate to confound truth or to hold many truths all at once.

Ambiguity, disagreement, uncertainty—messiness! It is a part of life and, therefore, a part of politics. Making art enables me to capture that messiness better than the written word. I decided to share art from LINES because the exhibition is an apt illustration of how I work with words, drawing and curation. 

Twinning describes the practice of linking two or more communities. These communities are often located in different countries, connecting groups of people below and beyond the nation-state level, and are frequently associated with the post-war peace-building project.

From 1950, local mayors and national officials in Europe collaborated to create cultural connections between towns torn apart during the Second World War. Many of these connections still exist today, and they have long acted as conduits for exchanging people, goods, and ideas.

Academics, journalists, and literary figures have surveyed the intra European town twinning project. However, far less attention has been given to twinning beyond Europe and how the practice has opened to agendas beyond cultural diplomacy and peace-building in the past 50 years.

Some of these newer, twinning relationships have been straightforwardly instrumental and premised on the possibilities for courting business and investment opportunities from abroad; others have exhibited a more complex meld of emotional intensity, moral compulsion and political zeal.

Diasporic communities have established twin links to reconnect across geographical, cultural, and generational distances. The relationship between Speightstown in Barbados and Reading in the UK can be understood in this light. The seeds of this connection were sown at the end of the Second World War when Britain emerged with a much-weakened economy and massive gaps in essential services. The Labour government of the time resolved to stimulate growth with significant investments in national infrastructure and public health.

In this context, thousands of British subjects from the Caribbean responded to calls for agricultural and construction workers, train and bus drivers, nurses and carers to help staff the newly founded National Health Service (NHS). People arriving from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1971 to assume these roles have since acquired the “Generation Windrush” label. This refers to the MV Empire Windrush, one of the first ships transporting workers from Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana and other former British territories to The British Isles. Although they had arrived at the Government’s behest, these citizens from the wider British Empire were not always met with a warm reception. On arrival, they encountered varied forms of discrimination, ranging from divisive political discourse and difficulties accessing housing to more direct forms of verbal and physical abuse. In time, many established voluntary networks to help one another navigate the unexpected complexities and challenges of “arrival”.

Over time, these informal networks expanded in theme and scope, connecting new generations born in the British Isles to the cultures and histories they would not learn about at school. Among the “Windrush” migrants were many Barbadians who had arrived by sea or air to take up new roles far from home. Interestingly, many Barbadians settled in Reading, where they helped rebuild the town’s vital infrastructure and local economy. Many took up jobs working in factories belonging to major British brands like Huntley & Palmers and Burberry.

In 1968, just a couple of years after Barbados gained independence, a small group of Reading-based Barbadians decided to meet for regular meetings to share and build upon their cultural experiences and discuss current affairs at home. This was the beginning of the Barbados and Friends Association (BAFA), which, over many decades, cultivated economic and cultural ties to communities back in Barbados.

BAFA organises annual events in Reading to coincide with Crop Over (Carnival) and the Barbadian Independence Day. In 2003, BA- FA’s long standing tie with Speightstown was consolidated with a formal twinning agreement. This act symbolised the crucial role that Barbadians had played in the development and regeneration of Reading. It also situated the relationship as one of several examples that connect the practice of twinning with broader political projects to honour Britain’s migrant and diasporic communities and to flesh out what it means to say, ‘We are here because you were there’.”

Dr Ryan’s book—Political Street Art: Communication, Culture and Resistance in Latin America—examined the relationship between street art and social change in Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina as co-director of CRoLAC (the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean), a hub established to connect scholars within and beyond Queen Mary University.

Dr Ryans’s book on “friendship and global politics” will be published by Bristol University Press in 2025.