Convened in relation to Streams of Memories, an online screening programme curated by Culture Art Society (CAS) in collaboration with The Showroom, this reading group drew on the essay Why Black Cinema? by the late poet Toni Cade Bambara, to both reflect on and respond to the five experimental short films in the programme.

Building upon CAS’s ongoing work to both explore and host discussions framed by the intersectional relations between contemporary art practice and Black literary theory, this space of co-learning, convened in collaboration with The Showroom, was a coming together of peers in dialogue and reflection over the wider transmissions, critical artistic interventions, knowledge production and cultural genealogies to which these Black women cultural workers in the Streams of Memories programme – S. Pearl Sharp, Barbara McCullough, Kym Ragusa, Omah Diegu and Martina Attille – all belong.

Toni Cade Bambara’s text to read in advance was shared by email following confirmation of your bookings.

For further details about the accompanying online screening programme click here.

Streams of Memories and this interconnected reading group builds upon conversations between CAS and The Showroom throughout 2020-21, over the duration of their residency at Metroland Studio, reflecting on the production of support structures for new curatorial research and ways of sustaining a wider framework for CAS’s work for the public. Echoes and Trembles, for example, was an ongoing film screening programme curated by CAS in 2020-21 that both drew upon and expanded the free open-source resource of CAS’s African Cinema & Diaspora Film List.