The multi-talented creative discusses the importance of recognising Jamaican culture, her role as Assistant Director in BAFTA winning How to Be a Person and her recent exhibition with Wha Gwan.
For many people, the thought of breaking into the media industry is merely a daydream, one that can face a multitude of barriers. These obstacles have often hindered people from showcasing their talent, and systematically, British Caribbean people face the most difficulty in this industry.
Despite this, Olivia Fraser, director and curator has pushed back against these barriers, breaking into the industry with full force and now brings massive representation for the Caribbean community in the UK, through her work and her recent art exhibition with the drink company Wha Gwan.
Growing up in Manchester, of Jamaican descent, Olivia was always drawn to the creative scene, although her trajectory changed from acting to directing.
“I wanted to be an actress and I had moved to London but within a few years, I was like where are the opportunities, so I started to write and direct. As I did it more, my heart started to fall more and more in love with it and I felt like God was saying this is where I want you to be, I took you on this journey so you would be behind the camera and I was like say no more, I don’t have to learn no lines, I’m not mad at that at all.”
Speaking on building from “the ground up” Olivia expresses a need to be humble because “it was a journey of realising your destiny and then having to execute it in a space that you didn’t grow up in. It’s a lot of finding the kind of directing you like to do, a lot of experimenting and then it’s also a lot of being humble and starting from the bottom.”
Having started by being a runner on set and dabbling in music videos, Olivia eventually moved into the role of Assistant Director, which ultimately landed her that position on Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning short-form programme How to Be A Person.
The series was described as “provocative stories of being a teenager, from sex to sexuality to bodies and abortion, that radically reimagine adolescence as an era of self-acceptance not self-loathing.”
Relating to the themes and experiences of the show, Olivia describes the show as highlighting the “awkward moments that you have to experience, which I think everyone has had. Whether it’s realising who you are, understanding sex, abortion or religion. You grow up and start to form your own identity as a person, and these experiences shape it.
“All the episodes address these experiences that pop up in life and that’s why it’s called How To Be A Person. It’s about that growth, that part of life where you’re just learning how to be this human being that you’re going to be in the future, how you’re going to be as an adult, so I think a lot of it everyone can relate to.”
Although she joined the crew at the last minute due to the first assistant director being sick, Olivia rose to the occasion, describing the role as being “the mother of the whole set”.
“AD is not an easy job, but coming in late made it even harder. Not knowing many people on set, maybe one or two people, and getting to know everyone while you’re ensuring everything is running on time, and everything’s running according to how it should be,” Olivia told us.
“Making sure the director’s happy, they’re getting all the shots they need, and everyone’s quiet when they need to be quiet on the set. You have to make sure everyone’s happy and stuff like that.”
Olivia’s two weeks working on the set was the “longest I had ever done a continued shoot for.”
“It was predominately female set, so that’s amazing to have and work with many women. The job, however, came with lots of emotions, dealing with different circumstances and issues like food poisoning. There’s so many factors to deal with, and I think when you do something like this, and you get pushed into the deep end, it really is either sink or swim, so I was like, let me just make sure I swim. It really was a great experience, I still talk to crew to this day.”
The series, which eventually led to them winning a BAFTA for Best Short Form Programme in 2023, was a “career-defining” moment for her.
“Winning the BAFTA after weeks of hard work on set was amazing. It was like a stamp of approval for myself. Sometimes you can have a lot of self-doubt, but then you have something that brings reassurance, like, you know what, I am good at what I do.”
Breaking into the film scene was no easy feat, with the Broadcasting, Entertainment,Communications and Theatre Union (BECTU) reporting an “increase in the number of people who are planning to leave the industry within the next five years – from 24% in September 2023 to 37% in February 2024.”
Nevertheless, Olivia’s passion for storytelling pushed her to succeed in the industry and stay in it by wanting to tell “untold stories that are not necessarily put on screen.”
Her directing mainly comprises short-form media and editorial shoots, such as her Adidas campaign for their 2022/23 Pre Match Jersey, which, she says, are “inspired by Gunners Jamaican supporters”.
“I’ve done music videos, short films and then recently How to Be A Person. I started to discover that I’m gravitating towards more short form and editorial. I like things that are very stylised, like adverts. When you start to realise what you like and your style, you start pushing yourself more in that direction and you start to have a name for yourself ,” she said.
“That’s when I realised I don’t necessarily love long-form; directing a film is not a dream, but directing adverts for loads of brands or doing an editorial magazine is my dream. I want someone to be like ‘this would be a perfect project for Olivia because she does this style of directing’. So yes, it is really important to find your identity and find out who you are as an artist and where your lane is.”
As shown throughout her work, her identity as a Caribbean woman, more specifically a Jamaican woman, shines through, which aids her quest to tell untold stories.
Working with Guap to produce An Ode to Dancehall Queens, exploring the pivotal impact that Jamaican Dancehall artists and their culture have on fashion and beauty. Presenting the idea to Guap initially, Olivia states that they were on board, saying, “Cool let’s do it”.
“They did quite well we had good numbers so I think that one was easier to sell because it’s visual. The Dancehall Queen’s influence is very visual and this piece is just about putting respect on their names. So many people before would diss Jamaican women that did coloured hair, that did all the jewellery, that did the little tie top and whine up. Now if you look at our society everyone’s got all different types of coloured hair and different styles and old school things and jewellery and all that and teeth jewellery, and these are all grills and things that before we were getting dissed for, especially dancehall people in the dancehall scene they were getting dissed for that even in Jamaica itself. So I think it’s just kind of putting respect on these ladies’ names who’s created a culture that now has been adopted and we shouldn’t forget.”
Like Olivia, female dancehall artists have been overlooked in the music industry for decades, often influencing the style and usually being the inspiration for many songs. It’s a male-dominated space, one which undermines the importance of women in the field.
Much like dancehall queens, looking in a broader context, Caribbean voices have notoriously been silenced and underrepresented in the media. Rebecca Dass wrote in her piece “I Don’t See Brown Girls Like Me on TV, How Come?” that “the silence of Indo-Caribbeans (whether its actors, directors, or writers) reflect the lack of power they have in this industry.”
Wha Gwan, a rum-based tonic drink company launched in 2021 in England by David Mills, brings bursting Jamaican flavours to the UK market. Olivia initially did an art exhibition in partnership with them three years ago.
“I decided that I wanted to exhibit work from Jamaican artists for Jamaican Independence Day, and I needed a sponsor. I needed someone who’s gonna pay for it, and I pitched it to Wha Gwan, and they accepted.”
Proud of the success of the first exhibition, Olivia says she was happy to “find artists. I always find artists just online or artists that I already know and then put a call out, and they come and say they want to be a part of the exhibition.”
Wha Gwan was pleased by the first exhibition, they requested another one, which took place August 10th-11th 2024. Olivia said it was a challenge, and that “curating is new to me”. However, this does not take away from the fulfilment it brings her as she’s “really glad to do it and show people that you can be in these art worlds without having to know this kind of person or fit a particular kind of image.”
This second art exhibition was hosted at White City Warehouse and was a free entry event, with the option of donating towards the Hurricane Beryl Relief Fund aiding Caribbean countries devastated by the hurricane in July 2024.
Hosting art from African and British-Caribbean artists such as Mbaye, Alesha Charmaine Pryce, Ellis Lewis-Dragstra and many more. The art showcased the themes of sports, sustainability, community and culture, with a focus on the Caribbean.
Olivia has created a space for Caribbean culture to thrive and be celebrated in a medium that traditionally excludes persons from the culture and relies on non-Caribbean voices to tell their stories. However, Olivia highlights a “shift”, in the past three years.
“I think people have realised if we’re going to do something involving the Caribbean, we need to have Caribbean people included. Especially if it’s going to be Jamaican related, they need to be included in the conversation or it’s not gonna get across to our community authentically,” she said.
“We need to be strong in our culture and in telling our stories, or else a white man will be producing all our Caribbean content, and that’s not right.”
Olivia encourages the Jamaican diaspora to be more expressive with the culture and bring more unity to creative projects by collaborating and fostering a community amongst the creative scene.
She attributes some of the unity within the creative scene to Janay Marie, owner of Tallawah Agency, a Cultural Events & Consultancy Agency, committing to “bridging the gap between the amplification of Black talent and the rich cultural tapestry of the Caribbean Diaspora.”, and Monikah Lee, owner of the Jamaican Creative Network, a “platform that recognises, celebrates and uplifts Jamaican creatives and talents in the UK.”
“We’re now the third and fourth generation in England, so we’re very settled now compared to other immigrants, and we’ve reached a point where we can be too comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with being a part of British society, but you can’t forget your roots. You need to go back home sometimes, see what life is like there, and open your eyes. We need to make sure our culture doesn’t die or get diluted.”
Olivia’s push for the inclusion of Caribbean voices has cemented her in the UK creative scene. Her deep-rooted passion for their untold stories and her love for her ethnicity radiates through her work and is carrying the Caribbean community, more and more to the forefront of media in the UK.
Featured image courtesy of Nicole Parker