Watch Us Lead at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery - Review

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A new exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery brings together drawings, stained glass, recordings and photographs, all aiming to explore the lives and experiences of disabled people of colour in Birmingham.

Created by black disabled multi-disciplinary artist Christopher Samuel, 'Watch Us Lead' encourages visitors to reflect on the lives of people who are so often not visible within the art world.

The work followed a 15-month paid residency at Birmingham Museums during 2023-4, in which Samuel spoke to 160 people about their experiences.

He then condensed this into recordings with nine people, each accompanied by a drawing by Samuels inspired by the discussion, an excerpt of the interview and a photograph of the interviewee.



The discussions are each individual, but they also reflect common themes in how the interviewees have overcome the barriers that society and other people’s perceptions have often put in their way.

So K states: “You have to be able to be independent and take care of yourself..It was very much a case of I had to be better than everybody else in order to protect myself.”

And Paralympian Darren talks about how he felt responsible for making others feel comfortable in his presence. “I saw it as my duty to put other people at ease…the more independent I could be and the more I could show that to other people, the more they’d be happy to be around me.”

Samuel’s drawings are both insightful and reflective. We see Darren standing alone, his back to the viewer and his sole accompaniment a football. Or Rebekah, who discusses her difficulties getting people to understand her, is pictured with her face from different angles, each a different side.



'Watch Us Lead' also aims to have a conversation with the museum itself, its artefacts and its past history. And so within the exhibition are drawings from other artists which form part of the collection, notably the Pre-Raphaelites, with whom Samuel is exchanging ideas when creating his beautiful stained glass images. In 'Pray For Me,' we see a Jesus-like figure portrayed as a black man in a wheelchair surrounded by other people of colour – a reflection on the idea of disabled people needing to be cured or saved.

This sentiment also appears in some of the artefacts from the museum and the Birmingham-based Midland Mencap Archive shared in the exhibition. From badges for charities through to newspaper cuttings, these objects feature language which was deemed acceptable at the time but is now shocking in its non-validation of the experience of disabled people.

Samuel, who spoke at the exhibition launch, says 'Watch Us Lead' aims to allow visitors to have some understanding of the experience of those featured and also for disabled people to feel included and validated in a museum environment.

And in doing so, he challenges not just Birmingham museums but art institutions much further afield to be fully inclusive. In his own excerpt and picture, he states: "There’s a big absence nationally…if you don’t see yourself reflected, spaces are not for you.”

'Watch Us Lead' is currently on display, alongside photos by Birmingham photographer Vanley Burke, in the Contemporary Voices space at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and will then form part of the permanent collection.

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