Film Screening and Panel Discussion, Tuesday 19th March 2024. 6 – 8 pm,
Senate House, London, Room 102, First Floor
The past decade has witnessed a dramatic surge of interest in radical film and television from the 1980s, much of which was televised by Channel 4’s Eleventh Hour (1982-88). As films from this epoch unfurl in galleries, museums and festivals worldwide, contemporary filmmakers, inspired by the practices of their forebears, increasingly emphasise the relevance of this historical moment to the socio-political urgencies of today.
Conceived as the first of a series of initiatives devoted to exploring the contemporary turn towards reanimating radical film, this event focuses on Hannah Kemp-Welch’s [voices surface]: An Audio Documentary about Accessing Handsworth Songs (2023). This remarkable work charts a collaborative effort, led by Dr Sarah Hayden and LUX, to make Black Audio Film Collective’s landmark production, Handsworth Songs (dir. John Akomfrah, 1986), more – and differently – accessible. After a screening of Kemp-Welch’s documentary, panellists will discuss their involvement in this recent Handsworth Songs project and consider the original film’s extraordinary, enduring appeal.
The screening will begin at 6pm and will be followed by a panel discussion and drinks reception. Admission is free but, as capacity is limited, please RSVP by emailing jessica.boyall@rhul.ac.uk.
Panellists
Dr Clive Nwonka is Associate Professor in Film, Culture and Society at UCL, and Faculty Associate of the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation, UK. Nwonka’s research centres on the study of Black British and African American film, with a particular focus on the images of Black urbanity and the modes through which Black identities are shaped by representations of social environments, architecture, social and political conjunctures and the hegemony of neoliberalism within forms of Black popular culture. Nwonka has published extensively on racial inequality in the screen industries. Dr. Nwonka’s research is interdisciplinary and spans across Film Studies, Literature, Cultural Studies, Black Studies and Sociology.
Elaine Lillian Joseph is an Afro-Caribbean audio describer for ITV and freelance describer for queer events (Bar Woteva, Melaneyes). By day she works on the nation’s favourite soaps (Coronation Street), period dramas (Sanditon, Victoria) and reality TV shows and by night she provides live commentary of cabarets and dance shows.
Hannah Kemp-Welch is a sound artist with a social practice. She produces audio documentaries, collects oral histories, builds DIY radios, and works on creative projects in community settings. Alongside her artistic practice, Hannah is an Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts London, where she is also an AHRC-funded PhD student, working on a project considering ‘listening’ as a tool for unsettling entrenched hierarchies within socially-engaged art.
Dr Sarah Hayden is a writer and Associate Professor in Literature and Visual Culture at the University of Southampton. Recent publications include an essay on captioning as “unvoiceover” for Angelaki, ‘In which Decibella escapes audition’ for Bricks from the Kiln and ‘Me mouth noise/ fox ears twitch’: the text of the artists’ book produced by secession Vienna for Charlie Prodger | The Offering Formula (2023). From 2019-2023, she led an AHRC Innovation Fellowship project on intersections of voice, text, access and art called “Voices in the Gallery” for which she worked in conjunction with Wysing Arts Centre, Nottingham Contemporary, John Hansard Gallery among others. In 2022, she collaborated with LUX on slow emergency siren, ongoing: Accessing Handsworth Songs and edited the book (large print and online) by that name. Sarah is currently writing a book on voice in art for University of Minnesota Press and collaborating with Liza Sylvestre and Christopher Robert Jones on the Blue Description Project (now on tour!).
This event is a Media Arts, PGR-led initiative programmed by Jessica Boyall and Ben Stoll and funded by the School of Performing and Digital Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London.