Sonia Boyce

First presented in Sonia Boyce’s critically acclaimed exhibition, 'Feeling Her Way', at the 2022 Venice Biennale LEGENDS 5 STAR, (2021) is a handmade sculptural object displaying items from Boyce’s Devotional Collection.
The Devotional Collection, began in 1999, is an ever-growing archive. It documents the cultural contribution Black British female musicians have made to international culture. As Boyce explains, ‘over 300 performers have been nominated by members of the public… as a form of collective knowledge-building; the roll call of names dates back to the mid-nineteenth century.
The starting point for the Devotional Collection was a workshop that Boyce held with a group of women, giving them the opportunity to reflect on the first records they ever bought. Sonia then asked the group to name a black British female singer. For Boyce, it became critical to acknowledge that while the vocals of Black British women form the emotional soundtrack to millions of people’s lives, the memory of who these individual women are (or were) is often undervalued. In this work, a 12″ album (Winifred Atwell), 7″ single (Judy Boucher - You caught my eye) and CDs (Echobelly - On and the titular 5 Star - Legends 3 CD box set) are presented on a gold wall relief sculpture that mimics the organic geometric form of pyrite.