Ros Martin
{{Short description|British playwright, poet, performance artist, curator and activist (born 1960s)}}
{{Infobox person
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|birth_name =
|birth_date = 1960s
|birth_place = London, England
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|occupation = Playwright, poet, performance artist and activist
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|relatives = Orlando Martins (uncle);
Taslim Martin (brother)
|known_for =
|notable_works = Daughters of Igbo Woman
|website = {{url|https://www.olawalearts.org.uk/}}
}}
Ros Martin (born 1960s) is a British playwright, poet, performance artist, curator and activist, born in London and based in Bristol since 1995.{{cite web|url=https://www.blacksouthwestnetwork.org/blog/windrush-at-75-a-daughter-of-africa-in-bristol-remembers/19/6/2023|title=WINDRUSH AT 75: A Daughter of Africa in Bristol, Remembers|first=Ros|last=Martin|website=BSWN Bristol|date=19 June 2023 |publisher=Black South West Network|access-date=23 March 2024}} She is a founder member of the Bristol Black Women's Writers Group (2002–2005) and "Our Stories Make Waves" (OSMW) and Speakeasy South West, the latter two both associations of African diaspora artists in creativity.{{cite web|url=https://www.nawe.co.uk/DB/professional-directory/ros-martin.html|title=Ros Martin|website=National Association of Writers in Education|access-date=19 February 2023}}{{cite web|url=http://www.awingapreyasong.org/about-us/ros-martin/|title=Ros Martin|website=A Wing A Prey A Song|access-date=19 February 2023}} She was a member of the Bristol Black Writers Group.
Biography
Born in London, England, Ros Martin is second-generation British, her parents being from Nigeria and Saint Lucia. Her uncle was pioneering Yoruba Nigerian film and stage actor Orlando Martins (1899–1985), and she has been researching and developing material in connection with his life.{{cite web|url=http://www.bristol2014.com/arts-projects/ros-martin.html#.YtvSZ3bMI2w|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117071058/http://www.bristol2014.com/arts-projects/ros-martin.html#.YtvSZ3bMI2w|url-status=usurped|archive-date=November 17, 2015|title=Ros Martin|website=Bristol 2014 {{!}} The City and Conflict: From the First World War to the Present Day|access-date=19 February 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upEoMDfxnEk|title=What's Happening in Black British History? IV - Ros Martin|via=YouTube|publisher=Institute of Commonwealth Studies|date=7 April 2016|access-date=19 February 2023}}{{cite book|editor-first=Paul|editor-last=Gough|publisher=Bristol Cultural Development Partnership|url=https://research.aub.ac.uk/id/eprint/6/9/Gough_Back%20from%20the%20Front%202015.pdf|title=Back From the Front: Art, Memory and the Aftermath of War|pages=160–161 |chapter=AND ONE FOR KEISER!|date=2015|access-date=24 July 2024|isbn=978-0-9550742-5-7}}
She is the artistic director of the Daughters of Igbo Woman Project, "a transnational digital installation comprising a trilogy of literary films made in (UK, Nigeria & Nevis respectively)".{{cite web|url=https://daughtersofigbowoman.wordpress.com/|title=Daughters of Igbo Woman|website=Daughters of Igbo Woman|date=2017|access-date=19 February 2023}} In 2017, responding to Bristol’s transatlantic slavery legacy by evoking the voices of three generations of women from one family separated by the Atlantic ocean. The films were made in collaboration with Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo and Vida Rawlins. Martin voiced Fanny Fumnanya Coker, maidservant at the Georgian House, Bristol, Rawlins voiced Coker's mother, Adaeze (or Black Polly), and Eziegbo voiced Fanny's grandmother, Ojiugo in Igbo.{{cite web|url=https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/georgian-house-museum/whats-on/daughters-igbo-woman/|title=Daughters of Igbo Woman|website=The Georgian House Museum|date=August 2017}}{{cite web|url=https://bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/daughters-of-igbo-woman|title=Film screening: Daughters of Igbo Woman|website=Bristol Old Vic|date=October 2018|access-date=26 July 2023}} Also in 2017, Martin created a memorial event and video in Greenbank Cemetery to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Fanny Coker's birth.{{cite web|access-date=30 July 2023|date=17 September 2017|title=Fanny Coker memorial tribute Aug 2017 Greenbank cemetery|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09WNdrZDM9M|publisher=Ros O Martin|via=YouTube}}
Publications in which Martin's writings appear include Marginalia (Volume 2 of Jerwood/Arvon Mentoring Scheme anthology){{cite book|title=Marginalia|publisher=Avron Foundation Limited|date= 2011|isbn=9780954342272}} No Condition is Permanent, 19 Poets on Climate Justice and Change (Platform, 2010),{{cite web|url=https://platformlondon.org/p-publications/no-condition-is-permanent-poetry-african-writers-abroad-platform/|title=No Condition is Permanent, 19 Poets on Climate Justice and Change|date=7 November 2010|access-date=19 February 2023}} and the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.{{cite web|url=https://royalafricansociety.org/event/africa-writes-2019-bristol/|title=Africa Writes 2019 – Bristol|publisher=Royal African Society|date=28 June 2019|access-date=19 February 2023}}
Martin has been a driving force behind the "Countering Colston" campaign group, an anti-racist, pro-equity collective working to decolonise Bristol, including addressing ways in which the city has for centuries honoured Edward Colston,{{cite web|url=https://counteringcolston.wordpress.com/who-celebrates-colston/|title=Where is Colston (still) celebrated?|website=Countering Colston – Campaign to Decolonise Bristol|date=11 September 2016 |access-date=25 February 2023}} who was a slave trading merchant in the 17th century.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-42404825|title=Who was Edward Colston and why is Bristol divided by his legacy?|first=Pamela|last=Parkes|website=BBC News|location=Bristol|date=8 June 2020|access-date=25 February 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://www.huronresearch.ca/phantoms2020/interview-with-ros-martin/|title=Interview with Ros Martin on Countering Colston|website=Phantoms 2020|date=23 February 2021 |publisher=Huron University|access-date=25 February 2023}} Among initiatives for which she campaigned was the renaming of Colston Hall{{cite web|url=https://theatrebristoltytm.net/filter/Colston-Hall/Promoting-a-boycott-of-Colston-Hall-by-artists-and-the-public|title=Promoting a boycott of Colston Hall by artists and the public|website=To You...To Me|publisher=Theatre Bristol|date=July 2009|access-date=25 February 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2007/03/09/colstonhall_name_feature.shtml|title=Talk Bristol {{!}} Have your say: Colston Hall|website=BBC News|location=Bristol|date=24 September 2014|access-date=25 February 2023}} (now Bristol Beacon),{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/21/should-colston-hall-change-name-slavery-bristol|title=Should Bristol's Colston Hall change its name – to distance itself from slavery?|first=Ros|last=Martin|author2=Madge Dresser|newspaper=The Observer|date=21 June 2014}} which came about in September 2020.{{cite news|title=Colston Hall music venue renamed Bristol Beacon|work=BBC News |date=23 September 2020 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-54240812|access-date=25 February 2023}}
On 25 January 2021, Martin was one of four protesters arrested by the police for peacefully demonstrating outside Bristol magistrates court in support of the "Colston Four", the three men and a woman accused – and cleared at trial – of toppling the statue of Edward Colston during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/05/how-bristol-came-out-in-support-of-the-colston-four|title=How Bristol came out in support of the Colston Four|first=Damien|last=Gayle|newspaper=The Guardian|date=5 January 2022}} Martin had chalked the words "Let Justice Prevail" on the pavement outside the steps of the court.{{cite news|url=https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/woman-arrested-outside-colston-4-4998250|title=Woman arrested outside 'Colston 4' court case makes complaint to police|newspaper=Bristol Post|first=Tristan|last=Cork|date=12 February 2021}} Avon and Somerset Police subsequently apologised for the protest ban, accepting that they had misinterpreted the regulations and that the arrests were unlawful.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/22/bristol-police-to-pay-damages-for-arrest-of-activists-using-covid-powers|title=Bristol police admit protest ban under Covid powers was unlawful|first=Damien|last=Gayle|newspaper=The Guardian|date=22 April 2021}}{{cite news|url=https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/national/19253173.police-apologise-fining-protesters-outside-edward-colston-court-case/|title=Police apologise for fining protesters outside Edward Colston court case|newspaper=Oxford Mail|date=22 April 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2021/04/24/police-apologise-and-pay-damages-to-protesters-supporting-bristols-colston-four/|title=Police apologise and pay damages to protesters supporting Bristol's 'Colston Four'|website=Canary Workers' Co-op|first=Sophia|last=Purdy-Moore|date=24 April 2021|accessdate=19 February 2023}}
Martin is the author of the 2022 book Before I Am Rendered Invisible – Resistance From The Margins, a volume of spoken word, social commentary, play, essay and memoir that "throws a harrowing spotlight on issues behind racial inequality".{{cite web|url=https://arkbound.com/product/before-i-am-rendered-invisible-by-ros-martin/|title='Before I am Rendered Invisible' by Ros Martin|publisher=Arkbound|access-date=19 February 2023}} She has said: {{"'}}Before I Am Rendered Invisible' is a personal archive of performance writings that chart black struggle and resistance in Bristol and beyond, in spoken word, play, public chalk events, social commentary and memoir. In 'Before I Am Rendered Invisible', I am remembering, I am giving space, affording time, giving voice to the little people’s lives, to events that have mattered to me, that have provoked me, whilst living and working in Bristol. I am countering the silence, bringing to the fore and celebrating marginalised lives of struggle and resistance."{{cite web|url=https://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/ros-martin-before-i-am-rendered-invisible/|title=Ros Martin: 'Before I Am Rendered Invisible'|website=Bristol Radical History Group|date=22 October 2022 |access-date=19 February 2023}}
Martin initiated the project "Raising the Red", an art installation in Bristol honouring women around the world who have been victims of violence, created to coincide with the United Nations "End Violence Against Women" campaign.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74xl3y17gxo.amp|title='Solidarity' project for victims of violence|first=Chloe|last=Harcombe|publisher=BBC News|location=Bristol|date=9 December 2024|access-date=10 December 2024}}
Selected works
- 2013: Return of the Vanishing Peasant (stage play), with Denise Ferreira da Silva{{cite web|url=https://www.olawalearts.org.uk/cv|title=Curriculum Vitae|website=Olawale Arts|access-date=24 July 2024}}
- 2016: Being Rendered Visible in the Georgian House Museum, Bristol{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Axam3sgLdc&t=1s|title=Being Rendered Visible by Ros Martin|date=20 December 2016 |via=YouTube|access-date=19 February 2023}}
- 2022: Before I Am Rendered Invisible – Resistance From The Margins, Arkbound, {{ISBN|9781912092468}}.{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMqOn1sxzco|title=From Pitch to Publication: Before I Am Rendered Invisible by Ros Martin|website=YouTube|date=24 November 2022}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [https://www.olawalearts.org.uk/ Olawale Arts] – Ros Martin website.
- [https://irp.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2014/07/21/remembrance-legacy-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade-ros-martin/ "Remembrance, Legacy, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade – Ros Martin"], International Research Partnerships, University of Bristol, 21 July 2014.
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Category:21st-century British poets
Category:21st-century British women writers
Category:Activists from London
Category:Black British activists
Category:Black British women writers
Category:Black British writers
Category:English people of Nigerian descent
Category:English people of Saint Lucian descent
Category:English people of Yoruba descent
Category:English women dramatists and playwrights