The Ghosts of Songs: The Film Art of the Black Audio Film Collective, 1982-1998Kodwo Eshun, Anjalika Sagar The Ghosts of Songs is the first book-length exploration of the work of the Black Audio Film Collective. The collective, founded in 1982 and dissolved in 1998, comprised John Akomfrah, Lina Gopaul, Reece Auguiste, Avril Johnson, Trevor Mathison, Edward George and David Lawson, and for sixteen years their films addressed the social, political and racial crises of Thatcher's Britain and beyond. However, it would be limiting their achievement to see them either as merely challenging the hegemonic forms of mass media, or conversely as polemicist film activists. In films such as Expeditions, Handsworth Songs, Seven Songs for Malcolm X and Twilight City the collective explored and developed a black film aesthetic. The essays in this volume, contributed by Jean Fisher, Kodwo Eshun, Kobena Mercer and Okwui Enwezor, argue that they inaugurated themselves as an artist-group, laying claim to the right to reconfigure the space of cinema around the Afrodiasporic subject, reconceptualizing lighting, film stock, developing and printing, and inventing the forms that black cinema might take. |
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16mm colour film Abena Abigail aesthetic African Angel of History archive artists Audio Film Collective avant-garde Avril Johnson BAFC Trust Black Audio Film black film black independent film Britain British Film Camera Channel Four Chris Marker Collective's colonial context critical David Lawson Diaspora discourse Documentary Dominic Donald Rodney Edward George emerged Expeditions FESPACO Film and Video film culture Gallery Ghana Handsworth Songs identity independent film International Film Festival interview Isaac Julien Jack John Akomfrah Kobena Mercer Kodwo Eshun Last Angel Lina Gopaul London Louie Malcolm X Memory Room 451 Millie Mysteries of July Naomi narrative Needs A Heart Paul Gilroy Photographic test political post-colonial practice present production question race Reece Auguiste representation Ridley Road scene Screenings Seven Songs Signs of Empire Simmi social Songs for Malcolm Sound space studio Sydney television Testament Third Cinema Trevor Mathison Trevor Mathison/BAFC Trust Tupac Shakur Twilight City