0:00:08.399,0:00:10.399 ♪energetic strings♪ 0:00:36.600,0:00:43.920 When I was younger, the dream was to go and [br]study art history and I just wanted to be 0:00:43.920,0:00:49.320 an art historian. Not even an artist, just an art [br]historian, and I don't know where that came from. 0:00:55.440,0:00:57.420 I think the first time I came here, 0:00:58.680,0:01:06.300 I would have been 14 and came back every month [br]until I left West London to go to university. 0:01:09.540,0:01:15.300 I started with the gentler one's, the Constables. [br]And Constable always feels like that for me, 0:01:15.300,0:01:20.100 it feels like the beginning of [br]one's initiation to painting. 0:01:20.700,0:01:24.780 It's a sort of fateful rendition of [br]English countryside. I get that sort 0:01:24.780,0:01:29.220 of familiarity with certain features of [br]the English landscape. I get all of that. 0:01:29.626,0:01:37.426 Turner's my guy because there there's an act of [br]will and imagination, which is at the forefront 0:01:41.520,0:01:48.240 with what I call his cinematic eye. It's [br]a painting, but it feels like you're 0:01:48.240,0:01:49.774 in the disaster. 0:01:51.120,0:01:54.918 Everything I love about [br]Turner from the beginning is right there. 0:01:56.880,0:02:01.500 When you're a kid, you're made by paintings [br]because they teach you to be a human being. 0:02:01.500,0:02:04.980 They didn't teach me to be a Black person, [br]but they taught me to be a human being. 0:02:07.020,0:02:15.960 Slowly, it dawned on me, that it's a sort of [br]temple of whiteness, everywhere you look you can 0:02:15.960,0:02:24.900 see it. And that whiteness is offered to you by [br]the paintings as a sort of vision of excellence. 0:02:27.060,0:02:34.500 It's almost like a psychoanalytic moment of [br]becoming. The very thing that you love may well 0:02:34.500,0:02:40.080 be also the thing that's keeping you in a state [br]of discomfort about your place in the culture. 0:02:42.834,0:02:47.362 And so, you have to find another way of coming at 0:02:47.362,0:02:54.000 the thing you love, by embellishing it with other [br]histories and other stories and other narratives. 0:02:58.695,0:03:02.815 I became interested in making multi [br]screen films because it seemed a 0:03:02.815,0:03:06.000 way of bringing disparate interests together. 0:03:07.980,0:03:15.251 In a project in which you've shot material [br]yourself, having archival material immediately 0:03:15.251,0:03:20.974 says, multiplicity or voices at work, rather than [br]a voice. 0:03:23.046,0:03:26.905 I'm more choreographer than creator. 0:03:34.746,0:03:36.000 [John] I always love this stuff. 0:03:36.000,0:03:36.500 — Yeah. 0:03:36.500,0:03:38.500 [John] Somehow you can[br]just see, I don't know, 0:03:38.500,0:03:41.217 but weirdly you can[br]see that that's 4K. 0:03:41.217,0:03:44.389 [Qasim] Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's[br]like more detail in the lines. 0:03:44.389,0:03:46.527 [John] Yeah, it's just more[br]detail, it's just more light. 0:03:46.527,0:03:48.202 [Qasim] Yeah. 0:03:48.202,0:03:49.278 [John] Um, oh look at that. 0:03:49.469,0:03:52.401 Whole range, but you can see, what's going on 0:03:52.819,0:03:53.837 [Qasim] Amazing, yeah. 0:03:53.837,0:03:55.102 [Laughs] 0:03:55.102,0:03:57.256 [John] Oh, oh yeah. Yeah, go back. 0:03:57.474,0:04:04.080 If you live as I did in London, growing up [br]as a person of color, one of the missions 0:04:04.080,0:04:12.660 was to understand who you were and then by [br]implication, make sense of that to everybody else. 0:04:15.480,0:04:19.980 That this was a feeling I shared [br]with others was really important 0:04:19.980,0:04:22.620 for how Black Audio Film Collective came about. 0:04:24.780,0:04:29.880 We came together as a group in the same [br]art college on the south coast of England. 0:04:33.120,0:04:36.840 We heard from friends across the [br]country that something was going on 0:04:36.840,0:04:39.840 in Handsworth and that we [br]should come and document it. 0:04:40.849,0:04:42.856 [Woman] The youths are angry. 0:04:43.647,0:04:45.922 Not only the unemployment 0:04:45.922,0:04:47.922 That is just in the background. 0:04:48.576,0:04:51.287 That just-- everybody feel that. Right?[br] 0:04:51.287,0:04:52.605 That's not a major part. 0:04:52.605,0:04:56.214 It's the harassment that is[br]going on with the black people in the area... 0:04:57.894,0:05:05.214 [John] One of the features of the 70's and 80's [br]was a spate of riots across the country. 0:05:05.520,0:05:10.260 The reasons why a young group of [br]Black men and women would take 0:05:10.260,0:05:14.580 to the street had something to do [br]with the present, of course. But, 0:05:14.580,0:05:19.680 it is also a kind of accumulation of all sorts [br]of other events, which leads to that point. 0:05:20.527,0:05:24.879 [Woman] These are for those[br]to whom history has not been friendly. 0:05:25.724,0:05:29.820 For those who have known the[br]cruelties of political becoming. 0:05:29.820,0:05:37.140 [John] One of the things you needed to do was to remind [br]people that the riots were simply stalked by 0:05:37.140,0:05:38.407 all these other history's. 0:05:40.833,0:05:44.414 "Handsworth Songs" was an attempt to try and do that. 0:05:47.040,0:05:51.240 We wanted to raise the question of [br]Black representation in filmmaking. 0:05:52.260,0:05:54.900 By the 90's, we felt like we'd done it. 0:05:55.620,0:06:00.780 We continue to be friends and allies even thought [br]we don't work together as a collective anymore. 0:06:05.160,0:06:09.360 Literally, a couple of months [br]ago what defined this square was 0:06:09.960,0:06:18.660 permanent camps of people who were pro Brexit and [br]people who were very definitely anti Brexit. And 0:06:18.660,0:06:25.440 of course it's all gone now. It feels like a done [br]deal, it really does and depressingly so actually. 0:06:28.140,0:06:33.480 Increasingly, there's a kind of [br]disenchantment with being in London. 0:06:36.240,0:06:41.280 Most of us who are foreign looking got [br]the narrative very early on that apart 0:06:41.280,0:06:45.420 from anything else, what Brexit was [br]about was saying, "We don't want you." 0:06:46.740,0:06:51.300 And it made you feel momentarily ruthless. 0:06:52.500,0:06:55.260 Now that it feels as if it's "Over," 0:06:55.920,0:07:00.900 part of the accepting it is also not to [br]allow yourself to be destabilized by it. 0:07:03.660,0:07:10.642 The essence of all experiments, be it in politics [br]or aesthetics or narrative is that, there has to 0:07:10.642,0:07:15.622 be a way in which the past, present, and the [br]future can be brought into some sort of whole. 0:07:21.960,0:07:27.082 It is impossible to overstate [br]the significance of the sea in 0:07:27.082,0:07:30.922 the formation of the African [br]diaspora and Black identity. 0:07:36.900,0:07:41.160 "Vertigo Sea" was made up [br]of readings from "Moby Dick." 0:07:42.480,0:07:47.760 Accounts of enslaved Africans perishing [br]at sea and certainly, the Vietnamese 0:07:47.760,0:07:53.940 boat crisis' of the 70's, people trying to [br]escape from North Vietnam to come to Europe. 0:07:56.640,0:07:59.160 It was important that it felt episodic. 0:08:02.220,0:08:07.320 When I installed "Vertigo Sea" at [br]Turner Contemporary, we had a Turner, 0:08:07.320,0:08:13.020 and the painting we chose was "The Deluge." [br]And it was absolutely, absolutely perfect 0:08:13.020,0:08:21.219 for that show because it gave "Vertigo Sea" [br]a kind of godparent. 0:08:22.855,0:08:24.555 It felt to me important 0:08:24.555,0:08:30.660 that you had different voices to represent [br]the ways in which disasters come at sea. 0:08:32.454,0:08:34.738 ♪soft ominous synths♪ 0:08:49.276,0:08:55.134 The shift to making "Purple" was out [br]of the desire to find a way of fusing 0:08:55.134,0:08:58.123 autobiography and historical insights together. 0:09:09.900,0:09:13.260 If you live as I did, in London in the 60's, 0:09:13.800,0:09:20.013 no one ever mentioned the fact that living [br]underneath a power station, which pumped a 0:09:20.013,0:09:26.711 million ton of carbon dioxide into the air may [br]have an adverse effect on your life. Never. 0:09:30.120,0:09:35.340 Battersea Power Station was working at the [br]time of the Cuban revolution, and continued 0:09:35.340,0:09:41.280 to work by the time Nkrumah was overthrown [br]in Ghana in '66. It was poisoning me during 0:09:41.280,0:09:46.140 the March on Washington. You know, all of these [br]things were happening at exactly the same time. 0:09:50.122,0:09:56.445 There's no causality between the March on Washington and my poisoning as a teenager. 0:09:56.445,0:09:59.744 But, the connective tissue is me. 0:09:59.744,0:10:02.835 I lived through this, I experienced this. 0:10:05.160,0:10:12.600 And so, by implication I am this weird [br]product of these disparate elements. 0:10:13.173,0:10:16.476 [Man] In the sky, those gasses [br]are partially converted to 0:10:16.476,0:10:18.476 sulfuric and nitric acids. 0:10:18.721,0:10:19.708 ♪soft piano♪ 0:10:22.047,0:10:27.202 [John] It's not true that children don't know when seismic political events take place, they do. 0:10:27.202,0:10:29.444 Uh, you felt it palpably. 0:10:30.835,0:10:34.234 I remember it very clearly that things [br]had changed in Ghana. 0:10:36.852,0:10:39.575 I'm of Ghanaian heritage. 0:10:40.260,0:10:46.020 My mom was a member of the ruling party [br]that took Ghana to independence in '57. 0:10:47.654,0:10:53.994 The military coup in '66 pretty much [br]meant that we had to leave Ghana, 0:10:54.300,0:10:59.760 because coups are a bit like death when [br]they come. It wipes out everything. 0:11:01.980,0:11:10.740 I was very, very happy to come here. And for a [br]good decade, this literally was paradise for me. 0:11:23.640,0:11:29.760 "Four Nocturnes" was my contribution to [br]the Ghana Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. 0:11:32.880,0:11:37.080 The brief was do something on Ghana freedom. 0:11:51.180,0:11:58.020 Global warming is affecting Africans. [br]Everyone on the continent is suffering. 0:12:04.620,0:12:10.500 Whenever you're looking at an image of [br]a young person walking across a desert, 0:12:11.340,0:12:18.900 it's also worth considering on the screen left [br]and right, that that desert is not history free. 0:12:27.540,0:12:34.560 So many young African migrants were drowned, [br]in the thousands at sea five, six years ago. 0:12:36.480,0:12:39.720 All of those lives were saying, "Come [br]on man, you could have been one of us." 0:12:40.500,0:12:44.880 So if you're not one of us, what are you [br]doing to tell people about who we are?" 0:12:58.200,0:13:02.460 Once you've understood that [br]you are a product of things, 0:13:03.420,0:13:06.900 you can't shake off realizing [br]that from across your life. 0:13:08.100,0:13:11.163 [Dread Scott] Those who wish to[br]die free, rise with me! 0:13:11.163,0:13:14.226 [cheering] 0:13:14.526,0:13:16.526 Onto New Orleans! 0:13:25.200,0:13:30.480 [John] The artist Dread Scott decided [br]that he would organize the 1811 0:13:30.480,0:13:36.000 slavery rebellion reenactment as [br]a march, as a way of honoring the event. 0:13:38.760,0:13:43.126 I have known Dread for the last 15 years. 0:13:43.317,0:13:45.480 Generally friends or allies ask me to do 0:13:45.480,0:13:51.300 something, I would if I can. And, I got involved [br]because he asked as an act of solidarity. 0:13:54.120,0:13:58.920 If it looks like they're going to go too far [br]that way, just gently bring it across. Okay. 0:13:59.580,0:14:03.120 Let's roll on this now, because [br]I can see them in the distance. 0:14:06.360,0:14:12.687 It's a huge African diasporic event [br]that could have conceivably changed the 0:14:12.687,0:14:15.747 entire history of enslavement across the Americas. 0:14:17.400,0:14:25.020 We will now spend probably the next seven [br]months, Lara and I, trying to find a narrative 0:14:25.680,0:14:32.400 order to the material that we shot over the [br]two, three days. And then, we'll begin to add 0:14:32.400,0:14:34.180 some of this stuff to it. 0:14:35.379,0:14:40.078 I'd like it to call on [br]other events to help it make sense in the present. 0:14:43.205,0:14:49.101 If you ever see me in the field shooting, there [br]would usually be my long-time collaborator 0:14:49.101,0:14:52.636 David Lawson. My partner, Lina, who [br]has also a member of the collective, 0:14:53.100,0:14:58.980 and my son Ashitey who is now working with us. [br]And between us, we shepherd each project through. 0:15:05.520,0:15:12.480 The sense of belonging isn't some abstract ideal [br]Britishness or Englishness or even a Londonness. 0:15:13.511,0:15:21.251 It's very concrete, specific things. You make a [br]space in a corner of it that you're comfortable with, 0:15:21.251,0:15:28.042 with a bunch of your mates, and that's your [br]England, that's your Britain, that's your London.