29th November 2019, London: On Monday evening, Diversity UK honoured pioneering filmmaker Horace Ové with a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the creative industries. Mr Ové, whose work was celebrated at this year’s Somerset House exhibition ‘Get Up, Stand Up Now’, curated by his son Zak Ové, was honoured for his prolific career documenting racism, the Black Power movement in Britain and the Windrush generation over many decades.
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Lopa Patel MBE, Chair of Diversity UK, said “Horace Ové is a pioneering filmmaker, writer and photographer, who recorded the birth of the British Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, including the first Black Power meeting with Stokely Carmichael, Allen Ginsberg and Michael X, founders of the black power movement. Through film and photography, Mr Ové has documented the rise of the Notting Hill Carnival and the naissance of Black artists in this country. Generations of creative entrepreneurs are indebted to his visual acuity in charting the history of the Windrush pioneers, challenging racism and cataloguing the wealth of artistic talent in underrepresented communities. It is a great pleasure to acknowledge a lifetime of effort by Horace Ové with this award”.
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The presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award took place on Monday 25th November 2019 at Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP in London at the annual Diversity UK Paul Stephenson Lecture, which is named in honour of the social worker who, in 1963, led the boycott of the Bristol Omnibus Company for discrimination that eventually paved the way for the Race Relations Act of 1965. Previous recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award include Dr Stephenson himself; Lord Simon Woolley, Co-Founder & Director of Operation Black Vote (OBV); entrepreneur Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones and leading equality campaigner, Elaine Sihera.
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The award was presented by Lopa Patel MBE, Chair of Diversity UK; Rita Hunt, Anne-Marie Taylor and Ramesh Vala OBE, Trustees of Diversity UK alongside Anil Bhanot OBE, Chair of the Ethnic Minority Foundation and Jubilee Easo Partner, Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP, who are co-sponsors of the lecture.
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On accepting the award on behalf of Horace Ové , Zak said “I am so honoured and pleased to accept this award on behalf of my father. The Get Up Stand Up Now exhibition was a celebration of over 50 years of black creativity in Britain which started with my father and the Windrush Generation. I think it is important to celebrate Black History as part of British History and feel that we need a dedicated space in the UK so that more people can see the works of black artists. I am so inspired by tonight’s speaker (Tom Ilube CBE) and the work that Diversity UK is doing and hope that we can create a collaboration to make my vision of a Black History museum a reality. ”
Dr Lopa Patel MBE DUniv
Chair, Diversity UK