Marley Starskey Butler
Artist / Researcher / Social Worker

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Selected Works

2026
Compensare: For the Swallows We Weigh, Eastside Projects
Yuh Nuh, Vivid Projects  and Birmingham Museum and Gallery

2025
Augenblick

2024 
Thirty-Six, Midlands Arts Centre
Anchors, Hospital Rooms
Oh, So Now You Love Us? Eagleworks
Else, Multistory
Us Done Well EP X Warner and Butler

2023
4am

2021
Lemon Tree 
Thank You Music

2020
Black For Ages 
Tower In Memories

In Progress
Access Subject
Zwischen
Selected Ambient Portraits 2018 - 25

The Archives 2004 - 20 (Coming Soon)

PhD

CV

Articles + Features

Contact

 Instagram

© Rarahdem 2026

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Yuh Nuh
Vivid Projects, BFI, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery





Photo by  Marcin Sz

For Yuh Nuh Starskey Butler approaches the archive as a site for sampling, extracting fragments to construct a new work from existing material. Guided by intuition, Butler selected elements using a process of extraction and reassembly to create a sound composition, with archival imagery layered in response to the sound. These once separate phrases, words and images have been formed into a new poem by Butler. 

Archive Credits
Afeme Home and Friendship, Lighthouse Media Production, 1989. Courtesy of Frank Challenger, Producer.
Video commissioned to document the work of the Afeme Youth Organisation (AYO), Wolverhampton. 
Put People First, TURC/Birmingham Film Workshop co-production, 1983
Anti privatisation campaign tape made for NALGO.

Birmingham Media Archive Project: The First Decade 1982–1992 invites visitors to explore the city’s overlooked media heritage through the work of the pioneering organisations who were active in that decade, including TURC Video, Wide Angle, the Midlands Video Consortium and the Birmingham Centre for Media Arts, which emerged in 1992.

Since December 2025, a group of West Midlands-based creative practitioners have worked closely with Vivid Projects’ media archive to uncover the social, political and cultural forces that shaped community media during this critical decade. During the 1980s, across Birmingham, workers, activists, artists and organisers documented their lives, their struggles and campaigned for change. At the same time, industrial, housing and social decisions were made that shaped Birmingham's future.

Through research, discussion and hands-on engagement, the group have navigated and reinterpreted these materials, bridging generations and lived experiences, and bringing fresh perspectives to the archive. Charlotte Bailey, Marley Starskey Butler, Erinn Dhesi, Nafeesa Hamid, Jayne Murray and Vignesh Venkataramaiah now present a series of responses that foreground stories often absent from mainstream histories, offering new ways to see and understand Birmingham’s past. These new responses are presented alongside original archive works.

Within the Pixel Studio, artist, musician and researcher Gary Stewart reimagines the 1980s ‘video workshop’ with a blend of analogue and digital approaches to evoke the spirit of the era. The space becomes an active viewing environment where visitors can encounter, navigate and reflect on archive material in a setting inspired by its original context. We invite viewers to consider how these stories of activism, creativity and community continue to resonate today, and how Birmingham’s diverse voices have shaped its cultural identity.

The Birmingham Media Archive Project is delivered by Vivid Projects, funded with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.”

18 Apr - 28 Jun 2026. Wed – Sun, 10am – 5pm. 
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Chamberlain Square
Birmingham
B3 3DH