Black Audio Film Collective (UK / Reino Unido) Inaugurated in 1982 and dissolved in 1998, the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC) was formed by John Akomfrah, Lina Gopaul, Avril Johnson, Reece Auguiste, Trevor Mathison, David Lawson and Edward George. They produced award winning film, photography, slide tape, video, installations, posters and interventions. Their works combined a montage aesthetic with personal reflection to invent a new genre of moving image that challenged traditions of British documentary and drama, and profoundly influenced contemporary avant-garde film-makers and theorists. The emergence of the group coincided with the racial repositioning of the black presence in British public life in the early 1980s. Handsworth Songs (1986), Twilight City (1987), Testament (1988), The Mysteries of July (1991) and Who Needs a Heart (1991) won them a series of international awards. The BAFC body of work constitutes a powerful example of new ways of engaging with the past, present and possible future of black political culture in Britain.
Der Subjektive Faktor ("El Factor Subjetivo" / "The Subjective Factor") (Alemania/Germany) Helke Sander , 1981 Combining staged scenes, archive and documentary footage and fragments from drama films, Sander gives us her account of the early stages of the feminist struggle, exploring a series of semi-autobiographical themes along the way and deconstructing everyday life in the turbulent days at the end of the 1960s. The protagonist’s reminiscences of West Berlin from 1967 to 1970 mesh with her son’s involvement in new protest movements at the end of the 1970s. The film questions the aesthetics of cinematic representation and- faithful to the spirit of the times- is built on the premises that all images must contain a critical reflection upon themselves, and all personal issues are fundamentally political. “I wanted to show”, Sander explained “how decisions were made within a political movement; how random or subjective such decisions may be depending on the multiple interests and people making up a movement. And I wanted to show how young we were”.
Manifiesto de infrapolítica. Verónica Gago & Diego Sztulwark (Colectivo Situaciones), 2011, Barcelona: Espai en Blanc nº 9-10-11.
CONTEMPORARY ART PROJECTS
La ciudad suplantada ("Supplanted City") Colectivo Sitesize (Sitesize Collective) 2008, Barcelona (Spain), A collective, polyphonic exercise seeking to give new meaning to words that have lost their signifiying power, this project takes us through urban spaces in Barcelona along with some of the people involved in the Rethink Barcelona/ Recover the City initiative.
Do you remember Olive Morris?. Ana Laura de la Torre, London 2009-2010, A community art project seeking to bring to wider public attention the history of Brixton-based activist Olive Morris (1952-1979). In her short life, Olive Morris co-founded the Brixton Black Women’s Group and the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent (OWAAD) and was part of the British Black Panther Movement. She campaigned for access to education, decent living conditions for Black communities and fought against state and police repression.
