The Commonwealth Institute and the Commonwealth Arts Festival: Architecture, Performance and Multiculturalism in Late-Imperial London

Abstract

This paper considers London, an imperial capital, in an era of decolonization. Through a focus on the Commonwealth Institute, opened in 1962, and the Commonwealth Arts Festival, held in 1965, it discusses the place of narratives of the 'modern' Commonwealth in the city. Architecture, display and performance come together to highlight the ways in which postwar narratives of the Commonwealth were produced, experienced and received in London. The paper underlines the optimistic discourses of multiracial cultural community articulated at the institute and festival, and the ways in which these emerged alongside, and in relation to, other more exclusionary stories of immigration and miscegenation in the capital. It concludes by noting the sidelining of these Commonwealth spaces and discourses in the city today.