8 OCTOBER 2018

This month we're celebrating a black British woman every day of Black History Month for #REMEMBERHERNAME 

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Lubaina Himid (1954) is an artist and academic at the University of Central Lancashire. She was awarded an MBE in 2010 for 'services to black women's art' and last year (2017) became the first black woman and the oldest recipient ever of the acclaimed Turner Prize 

Artist Samira Addo, reflects on what Himid's work means to her as an artist:

I first came across Lubaina Himid at the Tate, and I was impressed by both the aesthetics of her work, but also, her amazing contribution to the UK's black art movement. She has been awarded an MBE for her 'services to black women's art' and is still creating art with activism in mind. I love that her work is visible and sending a message worldwide as representation is so very important; infact, it probably has subconsciously assured me it's very possible to be a successful artist as I am. This to me is both inspiring but is also tainted by the fact that it just shouldn't be a struggle in the first instance.

There's also a personal connection as she was born where my mother is from, Zanzibar. Her work inspires me to delve deeper and explore reflecting my own personal experiences being a black female through art, but also to look at commenting on identities and diversity in this contemporary British society.

Samira Addo is the winner of the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2018. You can next catch her work at ‘Not 30%’, the new site from The Other Art Fair. Curated by arts broadcaster and curator, Kate Bryan, Not 30% is part exhibition and part protest against the male dominated art world. A recent report from The Fawcett Society showed women are at best represented 30% of the time in the art world.

60% of art graduates are women, yet in gallery representation, museum collections and exhibitions, the presence of women artists amounts to a maximum of 30%, often far less.

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What can you do to support this Black History Month?

Check out these organizations: 

• Southhall Black Sisters
• IMKAAN
• The Black Cultural Archives

You can also read Fawcett's research on The Gender Pay Gap by Ethnicity to find out more about how the pay gap affects women of colour, and our Invisible Women report exploring how race, faith, ethnicity, age, disability, sexuality, location and employment status can combine with gender to create distinct and particularly troubling experiences of discrimination and inequality.