Red Set Girls &Jack in the Green
When: Friday 2 May, 2025
Where: Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
Playing The Race Card teamed up with We Out Here and Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green to celebrate the rich intersection of Caribbean and British folk traditions.
Hosted by Lorna Hamilton-Brown RCA MBE – artist, academic and founder of the We Out Here project – the evening focused on Isaac Mendes Belisario’s 1837 painting of the Red Set Girls and the Jack in the Green figure.
Through fashion, costume, music and performance, the event explored the cultural intersections of resistance, identity and heritage.
Playing the Race Card founder Claudine Eccleston traced the mix of African, Caribbean and European influences found in both the Red Set Girls and Jack in the Green traditions. She also spoke about the roots of Jonkonnu – a Jamaican festival of resistance – and its links to British folk culture.
Dr Tola Dabiri led a session on the African origins of Caribbean Mas (Carnival), while S.I. Martin examined the Jack in the Green figure across British May Day and Caribbean carnival traditions.
The event also included video performances by folk artists Angeline Morrison and Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne.
What emerged was a rich exchange of ideas, revealing how folk traditions on both sides of the Atlantic carry shared histories of movement, resistance and cultural memory.
