Errol Francis

Dr. Errol Anthony Francis (born in Oracabessa, Jamaica, 1956)[1] is an artist, former mental health campaigner, and current charity executive in the United Kingdom.[2] He currently lives and works in London, England.[2]

For the DJ and composer also named Errol Francis, see DJ Dextrous.

Biography

Errol Francis gained his MA Fine Art from Central St Martins College of Art and Design in 2004. His professional practice ranged from being a mental health carer, a mental health writer, consultant and campaigner, to running mental health charities and being a senior manager in the NHS.

He has co-authored of a number of inquiry reports and book chapters, including Black People, Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System with Deryck Browne[3] and Epidemiology, ethnicity and schizophrenia with S. P. Sashidharan.[4] Francis was part of the independent public inquiry into a number of deaths of African-Caribbean patients at Broadmoor Hospital and was co-author of the 1993 Big, Black and Dangerous report into deaths of African-Caribbean patients at Broadmoor Hospital.[5][6] Francis was formerly Joint Programme Lead at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health[7] and was co-author of Breaking the Circles of Fear, a research report into the relationship of the African-Caribbean community with the psychiatric services.[8] The project aimed to promote inclusion and positive mental health for black mental health service users, advising the Department of Health on their Delivering Race Equality programme.

As an artist, Francis has exhibited across the UK. His installation about voting processes was exhibited at the Nehru Centre London, and his photos and videos have been seen at a series of exhibitions at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery in Greenwich,[9] at the BFI Southbank[10] and the Camberwell Arts Festival.[11] He was one of the artists chosen in 2007 to respond to the Bicentenary of the Parliamentary Abolition of the Slave Trade, to which he responded by encapsulating a lump of demerara sugar in acrylic.[12] His collaborations with former asylum patients were shown in London, Birmingham, Penryth and Glasgow in 2007 as part of the Mental Health Media project Testimony.[13] He has collaborated with artist Caspar Below as Black Park, in 2005 when they launched their online project as part of the A2 Arts Ephemeral Cities project for Deptford.[14]

There are numerous references in Francis’s work to post-colonial visuality as it is manifested in architecture, landscape, museums and plant collecting. This critical questioning of empire and difference and its meaning for contemporary Britain have repeatedly led him to Greenwich, a place he has identified as historically crucial and representative for the British national identity, which he explored in his (2009) Space time and Englishness.[15] His doctoral thesis is about the institutional, spatial and historical relationships between museums, gardens and hospitals.[16]

Errol was appointed CEO of Culture& in 2016, in which capacity he remains. In addition, he was awarded his PhD from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, where his research focused on postcolonial artistic responses to museums. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of West London in 2017.[17]

References

1. Francis, Errol (1988). "Fragments of the Green Island and Rotogravure". In Allnutt, Gillian; Fred D'Aguiar; Ken Edwards; Eric Mottram (eds.). The New British Poetry 1968-1988. London: Paladin.
2. "Culture& | Our Team". Retrieved 11 June 2019.
3. Francis, Errol; Browne, Deryck (1993). "Black people, mental health and the criminal justice system". In Watson, W; Grounds, Adrian (eds.). The Mentally Disordered Offender in an Era of Community Care: New Directions in Provision. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4. Francis, Errol; Sashidharan, S. P. (1993). "Epidemiology, ethnicity and schizophrenia". In W. I. U. Ahmad (ed.). Race and Health in Contemporary Britain. Buckingham: Open University Press.
5. Prins, H; Backer-Hoist, T; Francis, E; et al., eds. (1993). Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Death in Broadmoor Hospital of Orville Blackwood and a Review of the Deaths of Two Other Afro-Caribbean Patients: Big, Black and Dangerous?. London: Special Hospitals Service Authority (SHSA).
6. Athwal, Harmit, "Rocky Bennett – Killed by Institutional Racism?", Institute of Race Relations, 18 February 2004.
7. Frances, Errol, "Too little, too late", The Guardian, 11 February 2004.
8. Breaking the Circles of Fear: A review of the relationship between mental health services and African and Caribbean communities, London: The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, 2002.
9. Smith, Kate (11 April 2006). "Looking Both Ways At The Stephen Lawrence Gallery". Looking Both Ways At The Stephen Lawrence Gallery. Culture 24. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
10. Francis, Errol. "Exodus: Remembering Slavery". Exodus: Remembering Slavery. BFI. Archived from the original on 2011-09-11. Retrieved 2011-10-31.
11. "Camberwell Arts Festival 2011". Camberwell Arts Festival 2011. Royal British Society of Sculptors. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
12. "Freedom and Culture". Freedom and Culture. Alchemy. Archived from the original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
13. "Testimony - Inside Stories of mental health care". countergaze - the All Saints and St Ebba's Series. Mental Health Media. Archived from the original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
14. "Black Park". Deptford X, Ephemeral Cities. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
15. "Space time and Englishness". Seeing ourselves - Being British. Stephen Lawrence Gallery. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
16. Francis, Errol (2011). "The madness of artists: from genius to creativity". Open Mind (167): 4–5.
17. "Our Honoraries | University of West London". www.uwl.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 June 2019.