LUX Scotland and Black Radical Imagination present Collective Blackness

Collective Blackness is a one-day symposium that explores the visibility and work of global black film collectives and the intersections of black conscious creativity within the history of cinema. The event is organised by Amir George of Black Radical Imagination and presented in partnership with LUX Scotland as part of the public programme for John Akomfrah’s exhibition Vertigo Sea, which continues at Talbot Rice Gallery until 27 January 2018.

Beginning in 2013, the notion of the Black Radical Imagination stemmed from a series of discussions around the boundaries and limitations that are historically given to people of colour in the realm of the cinematic. An artistic movement and school of thought, Black Radical Imagination is curated by Amir George and Erin Christovale.

Click here to view the printed programme which includes a schedule for the day and information on the film programme Collective Transitions, curated by Amir George.

This event is presented with support from Film Hub Scotland (part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network) and Creative Scotland. With thanks to Talbot Rice Gallery and Transmission Gallery.

This symposium takes place alongside a series of events produced by Black Radical Imagination in partnership with LUX Scotland, including events at Glasgow School of Art on Saturday 2 December, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on Sunday 10 December, LUX in London on Monday 11 December and Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow on Tuesday 12 December.

Christian Noelle Charles is a Black Female Artist currently living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. A Syracuse, New York native, Charles’s work is an exploration of female representation and self-love in a contemporary world. Charles takes inspiration from today’s pop culture, modern performance techniques and personal experiences. She also derives inspiration as a performance artist from the relationship between performer and audience member. By using the mediums of printmaking, video, and performance her work demonstrates a celebration of self-love and individuality.

Working across and in the interstices between moving-image, text, painting and drawing Irineu Destourelles reflects on issues of identity, construction of meaning, discursive recurrence, the uncanny and iconoclasticism. He was born in the Cape Verde islands in West Africa, grew-up in Lisbon, Portugal and lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

Amir George is a practicing alchemist working as an artist and film programmer. He creates work for cinema, gallery spaces and live performance. Born and bred in Chicago, his moving image work and curated programmes have been shown internationally. In addition to founding a grassroots film programming organisation called Cinema Culture, George is the co-curator of Black Radical Imagination, a touring experimental short film series.

Jenn Nkiru is a visionary artist and director from and working out of Peckham, London. An MFA graduate of Howard University, her first film En Vogue shot by Bradford Young & Arthur Jafa screened internationally. Recent credits include a documentary series on music subcultures, a campaign with photographer Rankin where he selected Nkiru as one of 20 of the ​‘industry’s top directors and most creative talent’ and Rebirth is Necessary, a dreamlike film centred on Blackness past, present and future premiering on NOWNESS​.com. Nkiru has previously been longlisted for the Brilliant Filmmaker 1.4 Award, Aesthetica Art Prize and was a winner at the 2016 Encounters Film Festival.

Alberta Whittle’s creative practice is informed by diasporic conversation and working collectively towards radical self-love. She considers radical self-love a key method in decolonisation for people of colour to battle anti- blackness. Her practice involves choreographing interactive installations, interventions and performances as site- specific artworks in public and private spaces. Performance has begun to provide important moments for negotiating reciprocity, coercing and demanding that audiences participate in their own discomfort. Often insisting on some level of audience participation, Whittle’s performances attempt to reveal our complicity with systems of oppression, systems that we often choose not to see or acknowledge.

Underpinning her research is encouraging linkages between active collective unknowing/​unlearning and decolonisation through activating new ways of rethinking relationships to the past, present and future, based on unravelling concepts of history and memory. Key to these processes of unknowing and unlearning is working collectively in collaborative networks. Foregrounding these conversations is an analysis of creative strategies employed to question the authority of postcolonial power, its implications and its legacy.