WE ARE HERE: Artists' Moving Image from the British Council Collection and LUX is a series of five artists’ film programmes of compilations and installations curated by Tendai John Mutambu for the British Council, the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, and LUX, an international arts agency that supports and promotes artists’ moving image practices.
Each programme is curated around a theme: national identity, marginality, intimacy, the future and the archive. WE ARE HERE interrogates how outstanding emerging and established British or UK-based contemporary artists are influenced by these themes and how they explore them through biography, documentary, poetry and fiction.
SONGS FROM A FORGOTTEN PAST
How can we see the world from the perspective of the marginalised and stand by them in solidarity? Can marginalisation be undermined by reframing its representations? The works in SONGS FROM A FORGOTTEN PAST move beyond idealisation and romanticisation. Instead, they point towards the potential to write new narratives that critically recast old images, perspectives and tools of analysis. These works remind us that amongst the ruins of failed historical projects lies the potential for a vision of the future.
Artists included in this exhibition:
Artworks:
Ayo Akingbade - Street 66, 2018, 13 minutes (LUX)
Duncan Campbell - Arbeit, 2011, 39 minutes (LUX)
Susan Hiller - The Last Silent Movie, 2007, 20 minutes and 41 seconds (British Council)
John Akomfrah - The Silence, 2014, 17 minutes (British Council)
Luke Fowler - Depositions, 2014, 24 minutes and 32 seconds (LUX)
Samson Kambalu - I Take My Place in History, 28 seconds, I Take the Stairs to 1952, 56 seconds, Cathedral, 28 seconds, and Superfly, 36 seconds, 2016 (British Council)
Rehana Zaman - I, I, I, I and I, 2013, 14 minutes and 25 seconds (LUX)