theVOV – Collective Intimacy: Reviving a Live Programme
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Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf, Lumen, 2021. Video, 05:57, Courtesy of the artist and The Showroom.
Between land, sea, air and the stars on this Lumen is a sound and image based meditation and revisiting of Sospiro. Moments from the original 2019 performance exploring breath and the ideas of Collective Intimacy are recombined as a way to reconnect and heal during a period of enforced separation.
On 12 October 2019 at 180 The Strand, Oboshie Schandorf presented Sospiro, a participatory performance on breathing, vocalisation and meditation with violinist Blaize Henry and sopranos Julia Daramy-Williams & Jacqueline Yu. Sospiro, (Italian for ‘sigh’) references the permeating and golden light of a sunrise, and the power of the breath.
Between land, sea, air and the stars on this Lumen is a sound and image based meditation and revisiting of Sospiro. Moments from the original 2019 performance exploring breath and the ideas of Collective Intimacy are recombined as a way to reconnect and heal during a period of enforced separation.
On 12 October 2019 at 180 The Strand, Oboshie Schandorf presented Sospiro, a participatory performance on breathing, vocalisation and meditation with violinist Blaize Henry and sopranos Julia Daramy-Williams & Jacqueline Yu. Sospiro, (Italian for ‘sigh’) references the permeating and golden light of a sunrise, and the power of the breath.
Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf, Temenos (with Blaize Henry), 2021. Video, , Courtesy of the artist and The Showroom.
Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf invited violinist Blaize Henry to respond to the prompt ‘Temenos’. This improvised performance is a continuation of the themes of alchemy and Jungian thought instigated in Nigredo, the sister piece and originator of Sospiro and Lumen.
Over the course of the series, Henry has been invited to interpret and develop responses and motifs. In this piece Henry references temenos, a sacred space along with the ambient sounds of the external world to construct this meditative work. Courtesy of the artist and The Showroom.
Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf invited violinist Blaize Henry to respond to the prompt ‘Temenos’. This improvised performance is a continuation of the themes of alchemy and Jungian thought instigated in Nigredo, the sister piece and originator of Sospiro and Lumen.
Over the course of the series, Henry has been invited to interpret and develop responses and motifs. In this piece Henry references temenos, a sacred space along with the ambient sounds of the external world to construct this meditative work. Courtesy of the artist and The Showroom.
Phoebe Boswell, The Lighthouse 2, 2019. Video, 56:36, Courtesy of the artist, The Showroom, and Reece Ewing.
The Lighthouse 2 is the second immersive live performance of collective reading by a growing amorphous group of Boswell’s peers including Zoé Whitley, Rianna Jade Parker, Jade Jackman, Alexandria Smith, Liv Wynter, Buitumelo Mushekwa, Natalie Nzeyimana, Jade Monserrat, Rasheeda Namuloso, Amahra Spence and Claudette Johnson.
This performance extends out of Boswell’s exhibition The Space Between Things at Autograph, London (2019). A life-altering series of events serve as the genesis for Kenyan-British artist Phoebe Boswell’s new work: an emotive interrogation of trauma, healing, and the poetics of endurance.
The Lighthouse 2 is the second immersive live performance of collective reading by a growing amorphous group of Boswell’s peers including Zoé Whitley, Rianna Jade Parker, Jade Jackman, Alexandria Smith, Liv Wynter, Buitumelo Mushekwa, Natalie Nzeyimana, Jade Monserrat, Rasheeda Namuloso, Amahra Spence and Claudette Johnson.
This performance extends out of Boswell’s exhibition The Space Between Things at Autograph, London (2019). A life-altering series of events serve as the genesis for Kenyan-British artist Phoebe Boswell’s new work: an emotive interrogation of trauma, healing, and the poetics of endurance.
Phoebe Boswell, The Lighthouse 1, 2019. Video, 08:52, Courtesy of the artist, The Showroom and Prada.
The Lighthouse 1 is the first immersive live performance of collective reading by a growing amorphous group of Boswell’s peers including Zoé Whitley, Rianna Jade Parker, Jade Jackman, Alexandria Smith, Liv Wynter, Buitumelo Mushekwa, Natalie Nzeyimana, Jade Monserrat, Rasheeda Namuloso, Amahra Spence and Claudette Johnson.
This performance extends out of Boswell’s exhibition The Space Between Things at Autograph, London (2019). This performance was a proposal for women in the artist’s circle to navigate what it means to read together, to share space and each other’s gospels.
The Lighthouse 1 is the first immersive live performance of collective reading by a growing amorphous group of Boswell’s peers including Zoé Whitley, Rianna Jade Parker, Jade Jackman, Alexandria Smith, Liv Wynter, Buitumelo Mushekwa, Natalie Nzeyimana, Jade Monserrat, Rasheeda Namuloso, Amahra Spence and Claudette Johnson.
This performance extends out of Boswell’s exhibition The Space Between Things at Autograph, London (2019). This performance was a proposal for women in the artist’s circle to navigate what it means to read together, to share space and each other’s gospels.
Phoebe Boswell, Ythlaf, 2018. Video, 18:00, Courtesy of the aritst.
In Ythlaf Boswell Boswell evokes the remedial power of water to buoy her spirit, to heal and to suture, while considering how inconsequential the gravity of her personal narrative is when contextualised within the expansiveness of nature. Filmed by her father’s drone, the artist’s body is adrift at sea, at the shoreline between Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean.
Ythlaf – a literal translation of “water-relic’” in Old English from yth (wave, water, billow) and laf (remnant, relic) – alludes to the the in-between where waves recede. In this borderland, where reverence and danger meet awe and renewal, a source of healing may be carefully navigated. Water becomes a space of not only the sublime, but of play and comfort, escape and melancholy, nostalgia and rebirth – where the power of imagination may heal reality.
In Ythlaf Boswell Boswell evokes the remedial power of water to buoy her spirit, to heal and to suture, while considering how inconsequential the gravity of her personal narrative is when contextualised within the expansiveness of nature. Filmed by her father’s drone, the artist’s body is adrift at sea, at the shoreline between Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean.
Ythlaf – a literal translation of “water-relic’” in Old English from yth (wave, water, billow) and laf (remnant, relic) – alludes to the the in-between where waves recede. In this borderland, where reverence and danger meet awe and renewal, a source of healing may be carefully navigated. Water becomes a space of not only the sublime, but of play and comfort, escape and melancholy, nostalgia and rebirth – where the power of imagination may heal reality.
Thick/er Black Lines (Rianna Jade Parker & Aurella Yussuf), Intro: Black British Women/Femme Filmmakers Screening, 2021. Video, 31:20.
Curators Rianna Jade Parker & Aurella Yussuf of Thick/er Black Lines present a revival screening of Black British Women/Femme Filmmakers for theVOV. This screening includes a Zoom Introduction by Thick/er Black Lines presenting the following videos: Ayo Akingbade’s Street 66’(2018); Cecile Emeka’s herenowthenwhat (2020); and Emily Mulenga’s 4 survival 4 pleasure (2017).
Please note due the postponed launch of theVOV, Akingbade’s Street 66 (2018) discussed in this introduction is uniquely available to watch IRL in The Barbican Centre’s exhibition How We Live Now: Reimagining Spaces with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative (17 May – 23 December 2021).
Curators Rianna Jade Parker & Aurella Yussuf of Thick/er Black Lines present a revival screening of Black British Women/Femme Filmmakers for theVOV. This screening includes a Zoom Introduction by Thick/er Black Lines presenting the following videos: Ayo Akingbade’s Street 66’(2018); Cecile Emeka’s herenowthenwhat (2020); and Emily Mulenga’s 4 survival 4 pleasure (2017).
Please note due the postponed launch of theVOV, Akingbade’s Street 66 (2018) discussed in this introduction is uniquely available to watch IRL in The Barbican Centre’s exhibition How We Live Now: Reimagining Spaces with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative (17 May – 23 December 2021).
Cecile Emeke, herenowthenwhat, 2020. Video, 17:17, Courtesy of the artist.
Title inspired by the Jamaica kincaid novel ‘see then now’, herenowthenwhat is an experimental film that explores the helical and paradoxical nature of reality itself through the prism of the black diasporic experience in london by utilising film collage, essay and experimental methods. In particular, pulling from wynter, the work speaks to the caribbean genre-specific ontology that inherently informs ‘black british’ modes of being, that are consciously and unconsciously re-embodied, re-enacted and continue to evolve through and within a new diasporic british context, perhaps to a parallel end; incidental, necessary and involuntary formation of ‘new’ cultures and identities full of irresolvable paradoxes and contradictions in response to continued displacement.
Title inspired by the Jamaica kincaid novel ‘see then now’, herenowthenwhat is an experimental film that explores the helical and paradoxical nature of reality itself through the prism of the black diasporic experience in london by utilising film collage, essay and experimental methods. In particular, pulling from wynter, the work speaks to the caribbean genre-specific ontology that inherently informs ‘black british’ modes of being, that are consciously and unconsciously re-embodied, re-enacted and continue to evolve through and within a new diasporic british context, perhaps to a parallel end; incidental, necessary and involuntary formation of ‘new’ cultures and identities full of irresolvable paradoxes and contradictions in response to continued displacement.
Emily Mulenga, 4 Survival 4 Pleasure, 2017. Video, 07:18, Courtesy of the artist.
4 Survival 4 Pleasure (2017), a video artwork and sequel to my 2015 work Orange Bikini, follows my avatar on a journey through a succession of luxurious digital landscapes, claiming for herself a sense of absolute agency through the multifaceted ways she presents herself. The piece touches on aspects of cyborg theory, as laid out by Donna Haraway in her foundational text A Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway, 1984) in which she asserts that the concept of the cyborg will change what counts as women’s experiences through transgressed boundaries between human, nature and machine. 4 Survival 4 Pleasure also asserts that whether she is a concert pianist or dressed in jewels and feathers for carnival that a woman is equally valuable, important and justified. Embodied as a central theme is the desire for those who are marginalised to not only survive, but to find joy and thrive.
4 Survival 4 Pleasure (2017), a video artwork and sequel to my 2015 work Orange Bikini, follows my avatar on a journey through a succession of luxurious digital landscapes, claiming for herself a sense of absolute agency through the multifaceted ways she presents herself. The piece touches on aspects of cyborg theory, as laid out by Donna Haraway in her foundational text A Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway, 1984) in which she asserts that the concept of the cyborg will change what counts as women’s experiences through transgressed boundaries between human, nature and machine. 4 Survival 4 Pleasure also asserts that whether she is a concert pianist or dressed in jewels and feathers for carnival that a woman is equally valuable, important and justified. Embodied as a central theme is the desire for those who are marginalised to not only survive, but to find joy and thrive.
Julianknxx, Roots for a Crown, 2019. Video, 06:46, Courtesy of the artist.
Written and directed by Sierra Leonean via London poet Julianknxx, Roots for a Crown explores the negative perceptions and prejudice surrounding locked hair. In this imaginative docufiction, various storytellers delve into the symbolism and traditions behind their locs, and discuss how their hair has become an aesthetic marker of ancestral identity.
Written and directed by Sierra Leonean via London poet Julianknxx, Roots for a Crown explores the negative perceptions and prejudice surrounding locked hair. In this imaginative docufiction, various storytellers delve into the symbolism and traditions behind their locs, and discuss how their hair has become an aesthetic marker of ancestral identity.
Larry Amponsah, Looking for Sugar in the Ocean…Who is the Enemy?, 2018. Video, 15:36, Courtesy of the artist.
Larry’s recent video work Looking for Sugar in the Ocean…Who is the Enemy?, samples scenes from a Ghanaian market, providing a window into people’s daily lives and struggles. Amponsah treats the film as a painting: layering and re-configuring the imagery, manipulating the speed and applying saturated colour schemes, before finally inverting it to distort and alienate traces of identity.
Larry’s recent video work Looking for Sugar in the Ocean…Who is the Enemy?, samples scenes from a Ghanaian market, providing a window into people’s daily lives and struggles. Amponsah treats the film as a painting: layering and re-configuring the imagery, manipulating the speed and applying saturated colour schemes, before finally inverting it to distort and alienate traces of identity.
Andrew Pierre Hart, The Grid always Appears, 2019. Video, 09:45, Coutesy of the artist.
The Grid always Appear a narrative based experimental video that includes movement, dance & live sound recordings. Hart’s film acts on various levels and is a working document as such, he cites the work as being a visual sketch book , an exploration of painting formalities and an experiential way of thinking through his extensive theory ‘Sonic Ordering’ a process where all in our environment can be re-equated to Sonic and Rhythmic values.
The Grid always Appear a narrative based experimental video that includes movement, dance & live sound recordings. Hart’s film acts on various levels and is a working document as such, he cites the work as being a visual sketch book , an exploration of painting formalities and an experiential way of thinking through his extensive theory ‘Sonic Ordering’ a process where all in our environment can be re-equated to Sonic and Rhythmic values.
Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf is a British-Ghanain producer. Her practice is one that actively seeks collaboration and is informed by the formation of protective networks and cultural archives for those underrepresented or on the periphery of the contemporary UK arts ecology.
Nephertiti has worked on large scale and high profile projects with leading arts organisations including the Manchester and Whitworth Galleries, Art on the Underground, Somerset House, the Singapore Biennale and City of London. She holds a BA from the Manchester School of Art and an MA in Curating from the Royal College of Art. Nephertiti is part of the first cohort of residents for A House for Artists, a Grayson Perry backed initiative funded by the Mayor of London, the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) and led by Create London and has recently been appointed as the Artistic Director of Peckham Platform, a creative and educational charity founded in South London.
Nephertiti has worked on large scale and high profile projects with leading arts organisations including the Manchester and Whitworth Galleries, Art on the Underground, Somerset House, the Singapore Biennale and City of London. She holds a BA from the Manchester School of Art and an MA in Curating from the Royal College of Art. Nephertiti is part of the first cohort of residents for A House for Artists, a Grayson Perry backed initiative funded by the Mayor of London, the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) and led by Create London and has recently been appointed as the Artistic Director of Peckham Platform, a creative and educational charity founded in South London.
Born to Afro-Guyanese parents in South East London, Blaize began playing the violin at the age of seven. He went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with Steve Wilkie, where he specialised in chamber music and contemporary music performance.
Now based in East London, Blaize enjoys a varied career as an orchestral musician, chamber music player and teacher, having toured the UK and Europe with numerous ensembles. He is a regular player with Chineke!, Europe’s first orchestra of Black and ethnically diverse musicians, in addition to regular commitments as a session musician and recording artist, having recently worked with performers such as Annie Lennox, NAO, Sampha, Raleigh Ritchie and more. A committed performer of new music, Blaize enjoys regular collaborations with artists and composers to perform their works. As a featured soloist and ensemble player, he has performed extensively across London in the art world and contemporary music scene, as well as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and New Music North West Festival in Manchester, UK. As an artist and composer, Blaize enjoys blending a broad range of musical genres and mediums to create complex, luscious soundscapes. His most recent performance art pieces make use of spoken word, improvisation, jazz harmony and digital manipulation to explore themes such as race, gender, sexuality and desire in an increasingly divided world.
Now based in East London, Blaize enjoys a varied career as an orchestral musician, chamber music player and teacher, having toured the UK and Europe with numerous ensembles. He is a regular player with Chineke!, Europe’s first orchestra of Black and ethnically diverse musicians, in addition to regular commitments as a session musician and recording artist, having recently worked with performers such as Annie Lennox, NAO, Sampha, Raleigh Ritchie and more. A committed performer of new music, Blaize enjoys regular collaborations with artists and composers to perform their works. As a featured soloist and ensemble player, he has performed extensively across London in the art world and contemporary music scene, as well as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and New Music North West Festival in Manchester, UK. As an artist and composer, Blaize enjoys blending a broad range of musical genres and mediums to create complex, luscious soundscapes. His most recent performance art pieces make use of spoken word, improvisation, jazz harmony and digital manipulation to explore themes such as race, gender, sexuality and desire in an increasingly divided world.
Phoebe Boswell (Kenya/UK) is a multimedia artist who currently lives/works in London. Underpinned by a transient and diasporic consciousness, Phoebe Boswell’s practice speaks from the porous space between here and there.
She works intuitively across media, centering drawing but spanning animation, sound, video, writing, interactivity, performance and chorality. This tends to culminate in layered installations, which affect and are affected by the environments they occupy, by time, the serendipity of loops, and the presence of the audience. Aesthetics of figuration and representation through the radical imaginary of Black feminisms become tools for contemplating the body as world, worldmaking, rather than merely as object to be gazed at. Artmaking becomes a political act of service to community, where labour-intensive drawing practices, immersive technologies, and calls for collective participation denote a commitment of care for how we see ourselves and each other; how we grieve, how we love, how we rest, how we heal, how we protest, how we remember the past in order to imagine the future.
She works intuitively across media, centering drawing but spanning animation, sound, video, writing, interactivity, performance and chorality. This tends to culminate in layered installations, which affect and are affected by the environments they occupy, by time, the serendipity of loops, and the presence of the audience. Aesthetics of figuration and representation through the radical imaginary of Black feminisms become tools for contemplating the body as world, worldmaking, rather than merely as object to be gazed at. Artmaking becomes a political act of service to community, where labour-intensive drawing practices, immersive technologies, and calls for collective participation denote a commitment of care for how we see ourselves and each other; how we grieve, how we love, how we rest, how we heal, how we protest, how we remember the past in order to imagine the future.
Thick/er Black Lines is an interdisciplinary research-led artist collective. The group applies contemporary art theory, cultural studies and social practices to rewrite histories. Thick/er Black Lines was initiated by Rianna Jade Parker, Aurella Yussuf, Hudda Khaireh and Kariima Ali.
Thick/er Black Lines Website
Thick/er Black Lines Website
Rianna Jade Parker is a critic, curator and researcher based in South London where she studied her MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Previously a Tate Collectives Producer, she is a Contributing Editor of frieze and a founding member of interdisciplinary art collective Thick/er Black Lines.
Aurella Yussuf is a writer and art historian based in the UK. After completing a BA in the History of Art and Design at the University of Brighton, she received her MA in Global Arts from Goldsmiths College. She is a founding member of interdisciplinary art collective Thick/er Black Lines and the convener of Kitchen Table Crit, a monthly forum for Black artists and writers.
Cecile Emeke is an artist and filmmaker from London. Her work explores time, epistemology and cultural production, through the prism of the black diasporic experience, often with particular emphasis on black british, caribbean and london culture, within liminal, interior and intimate spaces of a relational, physical, emotional and/or psychic nature.
Her work is preoccupied with subtly foregrounding modern and contemporary acts of ritual that emerge unconsciously within mundane and personal settings, thereby unfolding spheres of life that hide in plain sight. Her work has been exhibited and screened extensively, including presentations at the ica london, ica boston, the brooklyn museum, the museum of contemporary art chicago, and the national gallery of jamaica, amongst other institutions. She has spoken at oxford university, cambridge university, the institute of education, the university of edinburgh and the university of toronto, amongst other venues. She is currently developing several television, feature film, virtual reality and moving image projects, including her writer-directorial debut feature film, supported by bbc films.
Her work is preoccupied with subtly foregrounding modern and contemporary acts of ritual that emerge unconsciously within mundane and personal settings, thereby unfolding spheres of life that hide in plain sight. Her work has been exhibited and screened extensively, including presentations at the ica london, ica boston, the brooklyn museum, the museum of contemporary art chicago, and the national gallery of jamaica, amongst other institutions. She has spoken at oxford university, cambridge university, the institute of education, the university of edinburgh and the university of toronto, amongst other venues. She is currently developing several television, feature film, virtual reality and moving image projects, including her writer-directorial debut feature film, supported by bbc films.
Emily Mulenga is a mixed media artist. Using visuals and sound that draw upon video games, cartoons and the internet, her practice explores themes of post-capitalism, cyberfeminism, speculative digital utopias and the condition of being a millennial.
Mulenga’s output reflects a ravenous consumption of media, where gloss and superficiality meet anxiety and crisis, spanning past, present and future. Using 3D avatars to navigate luxurious digital landscapes, she has explored escapism, agency, race and womanhood. Through installation and digital imagery she has examined anxiety and apathy. Recently, she has interrogated the notion of the ‘end of the world’, looking at capitalist excess, haunting nostalgia and living in the anthropocene, navigating existential unease through humour. She is a graduate of MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts.
Mulenga’s output reflects a ravenous consumption of media, where gloss and superficiality meet anxiety and crisis, spanning past, present and future. Using 3D avatars to navigate luxurious digital landscapes, she has explored escapism, agency, race and womanhood. Through installation and digital imagery she has examined anxiety and apathy. Recently, she has interrogated the notion of the ‘end of the world’, looking at capitalist excess, haunting nostalgia and living in the anthropocene, navigating existential unease through humour. She is a graduate of MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts.
Julianknxx is an interdisciplinary poet, visual artist and filmmaker whose practice crosses the boundaries of the written word, music, visual art and installation. Through his practice, Julianknxx explores themes of inheritance, loss, and belonging, and their effects on personal and interpersonal narratives.
With his critical engagement with art history and philosophy, Julianknxx uses his personal history as a prism through which to deconstruct dominant perspectives on African art, ideas, history and culture. Rich with symbolism and complex layering his work conveys our continuing and necessary task of defining and redefining ourselves through the simultaneous rejection of extrinsic labels and repositioning of ourselves within new collective narratives.
With his critical engagement with art history and philosophy, Julianknxx uses his personal history as a prism through which to deconstruct dominant perspectives on African art, ideas, history and culture. Rich with symbolism and complex layering his work conveys our continuing and necessary task of defining and redefining ourselves through the simultaneous rejection of extrinsic labels and repositioning of ourselves within new collective narratives.
Andrew Pierre Hart is a London-based artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores the symbiotic relationship between Painting and Sound.
His work is an ongoing rhythmic research and play of improvised and spontaneous generative processes, through various mediums including sound, video, performance, found object and image, language, and installation. Andrews’s current work explores Cross-modality, Sonic ordering, re-interpretations of DJ technology, collaborative processes and Listening. Andrew has a Solo show currently at Tiwani Contemporary London’ The Listening Sweet’, Hart recently was in residence at Beaconsfield gallery Vauxhall London ArtAngel ‘Thinking Time ‘Awardee 2020, A 2019 Tiffany and Co Outset studio prize winner. He performed alongside friend and fellow artist Larry Amponsah at ‘Collective Intimacy’ at 180 The Strand in 2019.
His work is an ongoing rhythmic research and play of improvised and spontaneous generative processes, through various mediums including sound, video, performance, found object and image, language, and installation. Andrews’s current work explores Cross-modality, Sonic ordering, re-interpretations of DJ technology, collaborative processes and Listening. Andrew has a Solo show currently at Tiwani Contemporary London’ The Listening Sweet’, Hart recently was in residence at Beaconsfield gallery Vauxhall London ArtAngel ‘Thinking Time ‘Awardee 2020, A 2019 Tiffany and Co Outset studio prize winner. He performed alongside friend and fellow artist Larry Amponsah at ‘Collective Intimacy’ at 180 The Strand in 2019.
Larry Amponsah (b. 1989, Accra-Ghana) is a multimedia artist whose practice investigates traditional modes of image-making whilst employing unconventional strategies of production to look at the contemporary politics of imagery.
Amponsah transforms, cuts into archives of both digital and printed images, which he assembles in collages that are further worked upon using mechanical processes (printing) and his honed skills as a conventionally trained painter. In this succession of strategic moves about image-making techniques, dynamic compositions emerge, as well as compelling, dreamy narratives or portraits that reference the artist’s own West African upbringing within a greater Black global narrative. Amponsah attempts to demystify the tendency of stereotyping the myriad of histories and people of African origin. Collage appears as a leitmotif in his work and was inspired to him by the popular paper calendars that are stuck onto each other on the walls of simple shops and homes in Ghana. Collage emphasizes the notions of hybridity, movement, and fluidity which for the artist are the keys of the black resilience and excellence.
Larry Amponsah received his MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2018) after studying at Jiangsu University China (2016) and at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in Ghana (2015). Recent exhibitions were at Billboard, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, The Vinyl Factory & The Showroom, the London Courtauld Institute of Art and the Delfina Foundation, London.
Amponsah transforms, cuts into archives of both digital and printed images, which he assembles in collages that are further worked upon using mechanical processes (printing) and his honed skills as a conventionally trained painter. In this succession of strategic moves about image-making techniques, dynamic compositions emerge, as well as compelling, dreamy narratives or portraits that reference the artist’s own West African upbringing within a greater Black global narrative. Amponsah attempts to demystify the tendency of stereotyping the myriad of histories and people of African origin. Collage appears as a leitmotif in his work and was inspired to him by the popular paper calendars that are stuck onto each other on the walls of simple shops and homes in Ghana. Collage emphasizes the notions of hybridity, movement, and fluidity which for the artist are the keys of the black resilience and excellence.
Larry Amponsah received his MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2018) after studying at Jiangsu University China (2016) and at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in Ghana (2015). Recent exhibitions were at Billboard, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, The Vinyl Factory & The Showroom, the London Courtauld Institute of Art and the Delfina Foundation, London.
Season One: Revive the Archive of theVOV, a new virtual arts ecosystem, combining cutting edge XR technology with pioneering micro-philanthropy hosted 15 of the UK’s leading arts organisations to revive some of their most celebrated exhibitions of the recent past. The Showroom presented our immersive Collective Intimacy platform to be accessible in a digital archive format.
This project, originally in collaboration with Prada and The Vinyl Factory, was hosted by The Showroom and The Store X in October – November 2019, launching within the Black Image Corporation installation by Theaster Gates. It took us on a journey through multiple narratives of the current Black experience, offering futuristic imaginaries as jumping off points for a collaboration. The programme featured artists, musicians, designers, writers, thinkers, collectives and members of the public who were invited to distort notions of selfhood and togetherness and celebration both the spectacular and everyday in the spirit of creating a global community.
For two weeks the season of 15 exhibitions included the following institutions: Hayward Gallery, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, Spike Island, Ikon, Tate, Drawing Room, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, National Galleries of Scotland, The Whitworth, South London Gallery, Nottingham Contemporary, The Photographers’ Gallery, Sarabande, Turner Contemporary, and The Showroom.
Through its initial archive on The Showroom’s website, and now it’s more dynamic and focussed presence on theVOV, Collective Intimacy resonates in a moment whereby activists and allies across the globe have been acting against unrelenting racial violence. In reflection of how the anti-racist movement and COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed pre-existing struggles for communities and culture-makers, it is our hope that this new digital context of Collective Intimacy expands its reach as a platform to connect and amplify a myriad of voices.
In this new digital format we presented an immersive archive of several original Collective Intimacy events including: Phoebe Boswell’s group performances The Lighthouse 1 and 2 featuring a sonic conclusion by Bumi Thomas; Julianknxx’s video Roots for a Crown with Thabo and Tawiah; Andrew Pierre Hart’s video THE GRID ALWAYS APPEARS, Larry Amponsah’s Looking for Sugar in the Ocean…Who is the Enemy?; Thick/er Black Lines’ (Rianna Jade Parker & Aurella Yussuf) screening Black British Women/Femme Filmmakers featuring Cecile Emeke and Emily Mulenga; and Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf’s sound and image based meditation Lumen and new performance video Temenos with violinist Blaize Henry.
theVOV is an initiative by Outset Contemporary Art Fund and Visualogical Virtual galleries developed by Erel Herzog
Season One of theVOV hosted on Vortic Art
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All donations to theVOV are treated as a restricted fund, managed and distributed to participating institutions by Outset Contemporary Art Fund (Registered Charity No. 1101476).
