Khourie Allen

‘Homecoming’ takes an insight into my life as a figure of representation of a young,

black female living in a 21st Century Black-British experience in Bristol. My maternal

family have helped me to navigate through the journey of living in Bristol with my

friends having accompanied me on this journey to understand what it means to be

black British in modern-day Britain.

I wanted to make comparisons in the experience that I have lived so far to the

experience my grandparents had lived when they migrated to England during the

Windrush Generation. Dating back centuries ago, treatment towards black people

residing in the city does not uphold the best history to its name, considering the

detrimental colonial past connected to it namely Bristol’s involvement in the

transatlantic slave trade to the Bristol Bus Boycott, the St Paul’s riots and the

occurrence of discrimination towards Black-Bristolians.

Alongside photographing family and childhood friends, I also retraced my maternal

family’s footsteps in the city, photographing the areas of St Pauls and Easton. St Pauls

and Easton were once home to many first generation Black-Brits residing in the city.

However, the symptoms of gentrification has recently started to affect these parts of

the city and the faces behind local businesses and residents in the neighbourhoods

have started to slowly fade from what it once was. I came to the realisation that the

areas that I had become familiar with my whole life had started to lose its appearance.