The Slave's Lament, Graham Fagen, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 2017

Imagine, if you will, a wan Scottish sky, limp drizzle swirling down into… the crystalline waters of Jamaica’s southeast coast; the shrill chirrup of red-billed streamertails bouncing through the air. Rare is the contemporary mind that would make an instant connection between the dreary Ayrshire coastline and fertile Caribbean shores. Yet, to the 18th century Briton this connection would have seemed more immediately apparent – and certainly less poetic. Nonetheless, it is by means of a poem, or rather, a ballad, that Scottish artist, Graham Fagen, invokes this historic relationship and sets it before the modern viewer.

Stepping through the doors of the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, it is not the high call of the streamertail that carries through the air, but the mournful vibrations of a low, male hum. Instinctively, we turn left, following these sepulchral notes until we reach the entrance of a small, dark room. Printed on the wall of charcoal grey are the words of Robert Burns' poem 'The Slave's Lament'. The voice of 18th century social conscience thus marks the beginning of Graham Fagen’s contemporary installations.

That bewitching hum issues from the depths of this dark space, at the centre of which stands the Fagen’s ‘Rope Tree’. Evocations of death: rope – noose – ship - slave take centre stage. Pulling past the ‘roots’ of this tree as they finger their way across the floor, we find four screens standing together and forming a shiny, rectangular quadriptych against a dark and empty space. A pair of glittering, black eyes stares at us from the centre screen. Two deep, flaring nostrils are set beneath them. The effect is hypnotic. Each abysmal element of this face seems calculated to pull the viewer into its own gravitational field. The camera fades to a mouth: the thin, grey wires of a moustache crawl out of the upper lip; browning teeth and a flash of gold. The mouth opens. Those doleful, low vibrations grow into the soft voice of reggae singer, Ghetto Priest as it wends its way in and out of the keener notes of a violin. The words of Robert Burns’ ‘Slave’s Lament’ fill the air.

Photograph by Damian Griffiths

It was in sweet Senegal that my foes

did me enthral, For the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O: Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more; And alas! I am weary, weary O: Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more; And alas! I am weary, weary O.

All on that charming coast is no bitter snow and frost, Like the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O: There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow, And alas! I am weary, weary O: There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow, And alas! I am weary, weary O:

The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear, In the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O; And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear, And alas! I am weary, weary O: And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear, And alas! I am weary, weary O:

This video installation is the product of the artist's collaboration with contemporary composer, Sally Beamish, whose score marries the classicism of the Scottish Ensemble with soft reggae beats.

The exhibition book published by the National Galleries of Scotland

Fagen's exhibition is one that embodies ‘art history’ in its most innovative sense - creating art out of history; out of the history that has shaped our society. The viewer derives not only sensory pleasure from these installations, but a deeper level of understanding. The artist’s ink drawings of Jamaican junks sit next to captions recalling the deep sense of irony that lies behind the words of Burns’ poem of 1792. Six years before, as the impoverished poet sped his way towards southern ports, fleeing his creditors, not to mention the family of a young woman he had made pregnant, his intention was to take up a position within the Jamaican plantation owned by his friend, Patrick Douglas. It was only the successful (and timely) publication of Burns’ Poems that year that would financially enable him to remain in his homeland and marry poor Miss Jean Armour, who would later give birth to their twins. And so, the would-be colonialist remained the Romantic northern poet, penning some of the most famous lyrics of the British Isles, and adding his voice to the abolitionist movement with his ‘Slave’s Lament’ six years later.

Photograph by Damian Griffiths

His ballad is evidently one that resounds today; it tells of the dark, teething stages of a relationship that has been an integral thread within Britain’s social fabric. It gave birth to the Windrush Generation over a century later. It gave birth to my grandparents, to me, and to this blog. It has produced art for centuries: from William Blake’s gruesome ‘Negro hung Alive’ and Victorian abolitionist shockers, to the vibrant realism of Barrington Watson and commonwealth artists of the 20th century… and again, today, in the mesmerising installations that lie behind the red sandstone of Edinburgh’s National Portrait Gallery.

Watch:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+slave%27s+lament+graham+fagen+youtube&&view=detail&mid=EF71B815B8D940B67182EF71B815B8D940B67182&&FORM=VRDGAR