Adam Thirlwell Reflects on Entangled Pasts Exhibition and Pankaj Mishra Lecture

Adam Thirlwell examines the Royal Academy's exhibition Entangled Pasts, which confronts the institution's historical ties to slavery and racial hierarchy. The show features John Akomfrah's 2015 three-channel video installation Vertigo Sea, alongside Isaac Julien's 2019 work Lessons of the Hour and Frank Bowling's 1970 painting Middle Passage. Akomfrah's piece incorporates Olaudah Equiano's 1789 autobiography, while Julien restages Frederick Douglass's British visit. Thirlwell notes a conversation between Akomfrah and curator Johanne Løgstrup published by Sternberg Press, where Akomfrah describes montage as an ethical approach to difference. The exhibition juxtaposes morally problematic art with works that ethically refuse complicity. Thirlwell also attended a lecture by Pankaj Mishra titled 'The Shoah After Gaza' at a church in Clerkenwell after its cancellation by the Barbican. Mishra, an Indian essayist, discussed the Shoah's universal significance, dissident Jewish resistance, and survivors like Primo Levi and Jean Améry who opposed its misuse by Israeli governments. Thirlwell questions Mishra's argument about endangered consensus on the Shoah's salience. Additionally, Thirlwell reads a new translation of Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1963 text La Rabbia (Anger) by Tenement Press, which explores global revolution and race. Thirlwell is a novelist based in London.