1921, Maramba, Zambia–2006, London, England

Immigrated to the UK in 1945

He participated in several DIAS events documented in the photographs shown here. His ‘skoob’ (‘books’ spelt backwards) events involved burning books to produce abstract canvases. A similar destructive approach continues in Book of Common Prayer and Untitled, where books are reduced to fragments. Such acts were not intended as censorship or anti-intellectualism but, as Latham put it, an attempt ‘to put the proposition into mind that perhaps the cultural base was burnt out’.

William Allen Collection