Guest blog post: Jessica Carden, Stuart Hall Library Research Network member

Grace Ndiritu, Pole to Pole

At the end of last month I was invited by the Stuart Hall Library Research Network to present my doctoral research titled, Contemporary Visual Representations of the Non-White Figure in the Arctic Landscape: British Colonial Constructions of the ‘Heart of Whiteness’ and the Black-White Binary as Fetish. Since commencing my PhD studies in late 2012, I have become increasingly aware of the importance of exposing my research and entering into dialogue with fellow practitioners. Therefore, I was delighted to be provided with the opportunity to present my work within the relevant context of the Stuart Hall Library and its research network members.


My investigation is focused on three specific case studies of artist film and video - each from Black–British filmmakers– that use the Arctic landscape as a setting to discuss issues of ethnicity, memory and belonging. Framed in the context of the British colonial construction of the Arctic territories and their place in the public imagination, my aim is to unearth the significance of the artists’ appropriation of Arctic space. The case studies include John Akomfrah’s Mnemosyne [2010]; Grace Ndiritu’s Pole to Pole [2009] and Issac Julien’s True North [2004].

Isaac Julien, True North

Further to my presentation to the group, the evening’s respondent Dr Saer Maty Ba began to unpack the layers of my research and identified several key concepts and theories which will be integral to a thorough reading of the artist’s works, providing particular insight into the practice of John Akomfrah. As Roshini Kempadoo has stated in her earlier blog post, we anchored the discussion with the question why now; what is the significance of the artists appropriating Arctic space at this point in time and can the works be read in relation to current European anxiety surrounding nationalism and notions of purity? From this point we began to discuss the intricacies of the individual works including notions of racial binary; the seductiveness of the film footage and the ethics involved in the appropriation of ethnographic archive material.

The evenings’ group covered a diverse range of backgrounds from film historians to curators, artists and theorists, and as a result the discussion was both rich and provocative. The process of compiling my various strands of research into the form of a presentation was in itself a valuable experience. The evenings’ discussion remains one of the most productive conversations surrounding my work to date and one that will undoubtedly enrich my research at this crucial stage.

Jessica Carden is a 1st year PhD student at the University of the Arts London Transnational Research Centre for Art, Identity and Nation. Jessica is a curator and co-founder of Mother Tongue, a collaborative curatorial research-led project
www.mothertongue.se

Notes from the Stuart Hall Library – 2012_2013: No.6 From: Roshini Kempadoo (Animateur for SH Library) – 8th March

What may well become a valuable core group of researchers and artists, formed the SHL research network session on 28th February night to reflect on Jessica Carden’s study and Saer Maty Ba’s contribution of three contemporary black-british filmmakers who use the Arctic landscape as a space to discuss issues of race, migration and belonging. Their research was insightful and rigorous, critically exploring the filmmakers work (John Akomfrah, Isaac Julien and Grace Ndiritu).

Still from Akomfrah's new film, The Nine Muses.

One aspect we discussed was the question of why now  - why in the last decade or so, have films such as these been made making use of the physical and symbolic landscape of the north? In what ways do the films at this moment in time, reflect a European political climate of anxiety and tension – including climates changes and threats, of the perceived ‘problem’ of southern populations moving north, of the political state space of retreat, aggression and violence towards women and southern bodies from the majority world. The extract from The Nine Muses (2010) directed by Akomfrah, spectacularly seductive in form and aesthetics also prompted a series of questions around the institutional and aesthetics of film production – such as the relationship between historical archive footage and crystal clear and highly improved camera/screen-based technologies. So a exploratory but animated debate that provided me with much more insight into how we might consider such filmmaking.

Speaking of explorations of aesthetics and questions of location and space, I also contributed to a session in January to students from Slade School of Fine Art that Erika Tan arranged looking at the work of iniva and the library. In amongst other things I showed the work by Chris Cozier who is currently showing at David Krut Projects Gallery, New York (until March 16^th). Chris as an artist, curator, writer and critic has started an online forum around his work with patterned concrete bricks.

Concrete bricks I hear you say – well most of us are familiar with these things – these bricks that act as ventilation in concrete houses in tropical spaces – found in verandahs, at the top of walls – often painted in contrast to the colours of baby blue, or intense pink we have come to associate with ‘modern’ concrete houses built whether in Ghana, Trinidad or Malaysia.  They are redolent of something more – of tropicalisation, of a the familiar architectural stuff of the South, they speak of materiality and modernity – something mass produced and evoking ‘development’ as Cozier’s title suggests.

Christopher Cozier (2013) dpattern 

There are some interesting contributions so far – of artworks as photographs, illustrations, animated gifs, spray painted interventions, proposals for a Caribbean and videos. See:

P&E[ Pinky & Emigrante ] What Remains – Feb 16^th 2013

http://dpatterns2013.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/what-remains/

Nadia Huggins No Place Like Home – Jan 31^st 2013

http://dpatterns2013.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/no-place-like-home/

Ebony G. Patterson Obscuring spaces building borders… January 21st 2013

http://dpatterns2013.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/obscuring-spaces-building-borders/

Feel free to contribute as I am about to…whilst looking for the traces of breeze brick patterns in the artists work in the library to share and debate with Cozier…

Some References found in the library and elsewhere about the artists below:

John Akomfrah

http://www.smokingdogsfilms.com/

Grace Ndiritu

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/grace_ndiritu/index.html

Isaac Julien

http://www.isaacjulien.com/installations/truenorth 

Erika Tan

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/erika_tan/index.html

Chris Cozier

http://dpatterns2013.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/press-release-christopher-cozier-in-development/

Saer Maty Ba's publication De-Westernizing Film Studies (2012)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Westernizing-Film-Studies-Saer-Maty/dp/0415687845

Stuart Hall Library Research Network, second meeting, 28 Februrary 2013

Research Network meeting. Photo by Christa Holka.

Join us for our second Research Network meeting of talks and discussions.

Jessica Carden will present Contemporary Visual Representations of the Non-White Figure in the Arctic Landscape: British Colonial Constructions of the ‘Heart of Whiteness’ and the Black-White Binary as Fetish

'A recent British Film Institute review of John Akomfrah's Mnemosyne written by Sukhdev Sandhu [2010] stated, “Mnemosyne is part of a small but noticeable trend for black artists – among them Isaac Julien in True North (2004) and Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) in Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctic (2009) – to mine the creative potential of spaces seen as literally and symbolically white.” Taking the BFI article as a catalyst for my investigation, I will present three contemporary artist film and video case studies - each from Black-British filmmakers - using the Arctic landscape as a space to discuss issues of race, migration and belonging. These include Isaac Julien's True North [2004], John Akomfrah's Mnemosyne [2010] and Grace Ndiritu's Pole to Pole [2009]. Framed in the context of the British colonial construction of the Arctic territory and its place in the public imagination, I aim to unearth the significance of the artist’s appropriation of arctic space'.

Jessica is a first year PhD student within TrAIN: Transnational Research Centre for Art, Identity and Nation at Chelsea, University of the Arts, London.

Dr Saër Maty Bâ will be a discussant for the evening, responding to Jessica’s presentation and contextualising it via a short discussion. Saër has taught film studies and visual culture at the universities of Bangor, East London, Portsmouth, Exeter, and St Andrews (UK). His research blurs boundaries between diaspora, film, media, race, and cultural studies. His articles and reviews have appeared in journals such as Film International, Studies in Documentary Film, Transnational Cinemas, Cultural Studies Review, Culture Machine, and Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies (forthcoming).
Space is limited in the library, so if you have not already done so please contact us to book a place.

Meetings will take place monthly on Thursdays, in the library, 2nd floor of Rivington Place from 6.30-8pm.

Iniva,

1 Rivington Place

Shoreditch

London EC2A 3BA

For more information or to submit a proposal to present at future meetings, email us .

Notes from the Stuart Hall Library - 2012: No.4. From: Roshini Kempadoo (Animateur for SH Library)

Food Programme in the Rafah refugee camp. Photograph: Said Khatib / Getty Images

In 1967, Debord proposed that social modern life is being replaced with its representation and is the ‘historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life.’ 
Debord, Guy (1994) thesis 42.

The Hyper- Image

I have been thinking about Debord’s writings in relation to taking photographs, photographers work, the technology and what I call the hyper-image. Extreme and formulaic compositions, overly dramatic intensities of colour and light, the impetus to take the most spectacular events and scenes. The hyper-image is being sought after, published, commented on and distributed online by those who take them (vanity distribution), those who think they will sell and attract, and those who re-circulate them for being ‘cool’. The intense, dramatic, uncanny, weird, spectacularly beautiful or shocking image is normalised into the everyday visual experience of the world. It is as if photography has become an extreme sport or an extreme game of hunting. Perhaps it is as a result of photographers’ having such overly sophisticated technology in their hands, or simply the response to the hyperrealism of the movies – 3D, 4D, 5D. 

So it is in wonderment and horror that I consume these unrelenting and heightened, fetishised images. Whether the horrifying images of the conflict between Gaza and Israel with dramatic lighting and almost painterly composition, or the quirky imagery of dancers in situ published in our ‘free commuter newspaper’ – reduced somewhat by the banal subtitle A Celebration of Joy In The Everyday.

Speaking of visuals that I consider of a different kind and motivation, over the last few visits to the SH library, I have begun looking through the catalogued material from Iniva audio-visual archive in the three drawers at the back of the room. There are some wonderful historical references to be drawn upon of work that Iniva has instigated, been associated with, been involved in or simply felt that the work needed to be in the archive/library as a resource. Ironically I am distracted by the surface and flickering imagery as I play them. The poor quality VHS tapes is exaggerated on the slick LCD flat screen.

Poor technology aside, the visual works are still stunning and pertinent. Works by Gurinder Chada, Martina Attile, Monika Dutta, Flow Motion amongst others throw up the underlying ongoing concern that motivates my re-visitations to older works and resources of this kind. I can’t help but recall Henry Louis Gates giving the Rivington Place lecture (2010) when he spoke about the importance of institutions, building and legacy. Not only is it the only way to counteract hegemonic tendencies that exclude and marginalise, but also provides no excuse for the next generation not to have sight of such works, efforts, discussions and no excuse for scholars, teachers, educators to be referring to such works in the future.

Reflecting on historical moment and the visual leads me to comment on Obama winning the election. Whatever you might think of what the country stands for, the US folk have been progressive enough to return an African American to the Presidency in this climate and at this moment. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose now. And such an astute speech often championing difference, dignity and compassion over and above the predictable Presidential rhetoric –

How often do politicians remind us that they are thinking beyond their own career to speak of:

‘Arguments we have are a mark of our liberty… open to the dreams of an immigrants daughter… [and] when we accept certain obligations to one another and the future generations… President Obama’s acceptance speech, Chicago – 6th November 2012. 

And so I reflect on the complexity and interrelationship between social and cultural politics and visual art that is embedded in the SH Library. And some of the great works that still continue to be made as continued works to those I view including: The Unfinished Conversation, at the Liverpool biennial (2012) by John Akomfrah, commissioned by Autograph ABP; I reflect on my meeting yesterday with Alanna Lockward at Rivington Place and her Art Labour Archives as curator, cultural activist and commentator on citizenship, race and Caribbean art. 

And Sonia and I finally manage to finalise a date and a pre-xmas event for a discussion of work by artists Martina Attile and Zineb Sedira. The evening will be based on screening extracts from Dreaming Rivers (1998) and the video artwork Silent Sight (2000) and discussed within the context of writings on Attile and Sedira’s works. 


Check the website and hope you note the date. Moving Images: Dreams, Sights and Memory in SH Library @ Rivington Place, Thursday 13th December 2012 from 6:30.

http://www.iniva.org/publications_prints/voices_on_art_amp_culture/veil