British Empire Exhibition Centenary: Wembley - The Crucible of Modernity’s Coloniality

2024 marks the centenary of the opening of the British Empire Exhibition (BEE) at Wembley. As we publish this, April 23rd 1924 was the opening day of the exhibition.

The BEE was organised to promote intra-imperial trade among the colonies and dominions of the British Empire. In the early twentieth century, there was a persistent debate about trade and economic policy in Britain. Though some advocated for Free Trade, there was increasing clamour to promote Tariff Reform, essentially protectionist policies to promote trade within the boundaries of the British Empire. The parallels with our contemporary moment, following the UK’s departure from the European Union are striking. Meanwhile, the role of design - architectural, industrial, and graphic design - was fundamental in envisioning and promoting the policy of intra-Imperial trade, creating an imperial language through a range of design media. Through this visual culture, the BEE shows us how largely the Empire loomed over and permeated through popular culture in Britain in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Its significance and legacy today is surprisingly overlooked, meaning that this centenary poses an opportunity for a critical reexamination of the BEE, the first exhibition to attempt to provide a holistic view of British Imperialism, with a particular view to its relevance today:

- It asks us to explore the place of design in the promotion and maintenance of the British
imperial project
- It helps us to understand enduring currents of Imperial nostalgia, especially in the context of national decline
- It creates the possibilities of deconstructing these elements to chart routes towards a more equitable future

In response to these concerns, The London School of Architecture, with the support of the British Council, is proposing to convene a conference on 12th - 13th September 2024.

This conference will convene the foremost thinkers, practitioners, archivists, curators, designers, artists, and other communities of interest around the British Empire Exhibition to understand the breadth of work that has already been done, and what still needs to be further explored in understanding the legacies of the exhibition.
What will distinguish the framework for this response to the BEE is the engagement with decolonial thought and praxes. We will use the conference to bring into reexistence narratives/processes/methods borne of indigenous knowledge, working class labour, lost ecologies and ecosystems, ‘deconstructing’ the exhibitionary order and way of seeing. The conference will encourage a scholarly dialogue that engages with non-Western forms of knowledge production and records of both BEE and the imperial/colonial experience.