Papers by María Piqueras-Pérez
PopMec, 2020
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Narratives of Displacement, 2022
Book chapter.
The diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement” as Stuart Hall claims ... more Book chapter.
The diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement” as Stuart Hall claims is a narrative that has always been
present in the United Kingdom. That is why, the main objective
of this paper is to explore the other British identity: mixed-identity as present inTherefore, this paper will analyse mixed-identitywith a focus on Black Liverpool given that the Black community
there offers a new vision of the British identity. This objective will
be achieved with the help of John Akomfrah’s documentary A
Touch of the Tar Brush which traces mixed-identity in Liverpudlian
families since the 1930s onwards. The importance of Liverpool
when it comes to Black Britishness cannot be denied due to its
multicultural relevance and the fact that it is home to the oldest
black community in the UK. Furthermore, in order to analyse
this objective three different but related ideas will be explored.
The first one will be what Britishness is and why Black identity
is constructed in opposition to this one. The second will be an
analysis of mixed-race culture in Liverpool. Moreover, the final
argument is related to the example set up by the Black community of Liverpool and how they are the example of a new British
identity. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even
if the Liverpudlian Black community lives in a twilight zone of
belonging and non-belonging, the black Britishness displayed in
Liverpool opens up the possibility of a new British identity.
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Book Reviews by María Piqueras-Pérez
Slow Emergency Siren Ongoing: Accessing Handsworth Songs, Sarah Hyden (ed) (2022), 2023
Review ofSlow Emergency Siren Ongoing: Accessing Handsworth Songs, Sarah Hyden (ed) (2022) event ... more Review ofSlow Emergency Siren Ongoing: Accessing Handsworth Songs, Sarah Hyden (ed) (2022) event and book
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Thesis Chapters by María Piqueras-Pérez
PhD thesis , 2024
During the eighties, several film collectives emerged in the United Kingdom and responded to the ... more During the eighties, several film collectives emerged in the United Kingdom and responded to the social unrest the country was facing. Among these collectives, Ceddo (1982-1994), Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1988) and Sankofa (1983-1988) stand out. These collectives, British filmmakers with an Afro-Caribbean heritage, are the subject of study of this thesis. Thanks to their original production, they were able to integrate different disciplines in their productions, which helped them to claim and articulate important reflections on postcolonial identities. Previously, Afro-British filmmakers were scarce and relied on institutions that allocated limited to Afro-British cinema (Hall 1988; Mercer 1994). It was not until the emergence of Ceddo, Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa that there was a proliferation of Afro-British representations. Critics, artists, and audiences of the time were confronted with a new paradigm where there was a reconfiguration of previous conceptions of what was expected of an Afro-British filmmaker as these collectives broke with the categories of the past (Williamson 1988). Ceddo, Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa underlined the significance of migrant communities’ culture, which was often overlooked and undervalued (Fusco 1998). Although these collectives developed their production separately, as this research demonstrates, they share numerous aesthetic and intellectual influences such as the works of Afro-Caribbean thinkers like Franz Fanon, Aimé Cesaire, C. R. L. James and, almost contemporaneously, Stuart Hall, all concerned with hybrid identities and the role of race in social processes. Although there are some publications on these groups, they received little treatment (Fusco 1988; Eshun 2007). The contributions by Fusco and Eshun and Sagar, while fundamental, are somewhat preliminary and panoramic. In more popular publications, they do not appear extensively: either they are not mentioned or, when they do appear, they are not dealt with in depth (Dixon 1988). Ceddo, for example, is not directly covered by these publications because his less avant-garde aesthetic did not attract enough attention (Williamson 1988). The main aim of the research is precisely to produce a detailed study of the production of Ceddo, Black Audio and Sankofa while demonstrating how Ceddo should be included in the study of Afro-Caribbean film collectives emerging in the eighties. The methodology is characterised by its eclecticism, drawing on theories and lenses of analysis from the fields of cultural studies, memory studies, postcolonial studies and film studies. These areas of study include an exploration of identity and nationhood, the role of cultural studies in society and popular culture, the cluster of intellectual influences that came to be called ‘postcolonial’ theory, the insights of memory studies, and the representation and interaction of these areas with film, which gives physical form to the abstract concepts from these fields of study (Alter 2018). The results show how the collectives interacted with different film genres, especially the essay film, introducing discursive and formal strategies stemming from their cultural and ethnic backgrounds. They also managed to propose new notions of identity and collectivity thanks to the relevance of memory and the use of archives. These collectives produced an art that wanted to be popular and accessible as well as avant-garde and intellectual, linked to the history and specific concerns of ethnic minorities. They demonstrated what it meant to be British and black from the perspective of Afro-descendant communities as they were involved in an unprecedented exercise of self-definition.
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Conference Presentations by María Piqueras-Pérez
Title of Paper: Englands’ Debt to the Huguenots.
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Title of presentation: ‘There are no Stories in the riots, only the Ghosts of Other Stories’: Nos... more Title of presentation: ‘There are no Stories in the riots, only the Ghosts of Other Stories’: Nostalgia for a Lost Past and a Future that never Took place as Represented in Handsworth Songs by the Black Audio Film Collective.
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Trapped between two worlds: cinematic representation of the ‘other’ as seen in Maureen Blackwood’... more Trapped between two worlds: cinematic representation of the ‘other’ as seen in Maureen Blackwood’s documentary Home Away from Home
In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E. B Du Bois explores how it feel to be a problem and how one deals with looking at themselves through the eyes of others. That is why the main objective of this paper is to explore how these questions DuBois addresses are present in the cinematic representation of the other. In other words, it aims at exploring how the other is perceived by the country’s long-established dwellers and how they look at themselves through their own eyes and the eyes of their country-fellows. This objective will be achieved with the help of Maureen Blackwood’s documentary Home Away from Home which tackles the experience of loneliness of migration. In this documentary, the protagonist recreates her Nigerian home in her British garden a fact facing hostility on the part of her British neighbours. Furthermore, to achieve this objective three different but related ideas will be addressed. The first one will be how migrants adapt or not to their new environment, here the power of cultural memory will be explored. The second idea will be an examination of how the country deals with the new situation created by the newcomers, under this idea hostility towards migrants will be analysed. After this, how this situation of being in the middle of two cultures with reference to the kids of the newcomers will be studied. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even if the newcomers try to rely on their culture’s memory and the nostalgia it brings, the country they live in urges them to adapt or leave.
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Mixed-identity in the Liverpudlian Black community as represented in Menelik Shabazz’s documentar... more Mixed-identity in the Liverpudlian Black community as represented in Menelik Shabazz’s documentary A touch of the tar Brush: a new British identity.
“The diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement” as Stuart Hall claims is a narrative that has always been present in the United Kingdom. That is why, the main objective of this paper is to explore the other British identity: mixed-identity as present in the Black British community. Therefore, this paper will analyse mixed-identity with a focus on Black Liverpool given that the Black community there offers a new vision of the British identity. This objective will be achieved with the help of John Akomfrah's documentary A Touch of the Tar Brush which traces mixed-identity in Liverpudlian families since the 1930s onwards. The importance of Liverpool when it comes to Black Britishness cannot be denied due to its multicultural relevance and the fact that it is home to the oldest black community in the UK. Furthermore, in order to analyse this objective three different but related ideas will be explored. The first one will be what Britishness is and why Black identity is constructed in opposition to this one. The second will be an analysis of mixed-race culture in Liverpool. Moreover, the final argument is related to the example set up by the Black community of Liverpool and how they are the example of a new British identity. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even if the Liverpudlian Black community lives in a twilight zone of belonging and non-belonging, the black Britishness displayed in Liverpool opens up the possibility of a new British identity.
Keywords: Liverpool, Independent Black Cinema; Multiculturalism, Black Britishness, Mixed-identity.
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Title of Paper: Signs of Empire: a (De)Construction of Colonial Fantasy through Cinema.
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Title of Paper: Being and Living with ‘the Other’: a British-Nigerian Experience through Cinema.
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Title of Paper: Bringing Frantz Fanon Back to Life: Black Skin, White Masks and the Persistence o... more Title of Paper: Bringing Frantz Fanon Back to Life: Black Skin, White Masks and the Persistence of Frantz Fanon’s Memory in Visual Culture through Isaac Julien’s Documentary Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask
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44th AEDEAN International Conference. 24th-26th November 2021. University of Santander.
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Entering a ‘warzone’ of memories through Black Audio Film Collective’s Testament
As Elizabeth Gr... more Entering a ‘warzone’ of memories through Black Audio Film Collective’s Testament
As Elizabeth Grosz writes, “time is perhaps the most enigmatic, the most paradoxical, elusive and ‘unreal’ of any form of material existence” (2004, p. 4). However, cinema has the power of portraying temporal spaces given that it represents abstract concepts such as identity or otherness (Alter 2018; Rascaroli 2017). Time is neither linear nor universally experienced in the same way. In fact, time in relation to the construction of identity shows an understanding of existence as possessing multiple layers depending on whether it is regarded or experienced from a past, present or future perspective. When lineal time is disrupted, in other words, when ‘chrononormative’ time (Freeman, 2010) is not followed, identities constructed in the margins of what would be considered the standard or normative appear. This is the case of those identities that are taken as diverse or as ‘the other’. Moreover, history through time becomes part of memory be it private or public which can lead to tensions between the two when it comes to excavating how they have been recorded concerning identity.
With these ideas in mind, this paper aims at exploring the temporal ruptures and their repercussion on the construction of a postcolonial identity. This objective will be achieved through the documentary Testament (1988) by the Black Audio Film Collective, which will be used as a tool of analysis. The identity explored in Testament (1988) is the one of a Ghanian exile returning to her mother country. This makes her enter a warzone of memories where she has to face the past that was left behind together with everything that she could have become but could not because her future was abruptly cut off by the experience of exile. The documentary combines both public and private memory as well as history to show what happens when the expected temporal linearity goes astray. In fact, the protagonist is a “time traveller” who constantly juggles with the past and the present opening up different layers of meaning. The documentary portrays this by mixing fact and fiction in the form of an essay film. This format thinks interstitially, forges gaps and creates disjunction to account for the gaps of memory (Rascaroli, 2017). In order to achieve these objectives, this paper will firstly explore the context under which Testament (1988) is released together with the time-frame it encapsulates and some basic notions to understand its analysis. Then, it will move on to explore how the disjunctions of time work with regards to the construction of identity. Here, there will be an emphasis on the past with reference to history and memory. Afterwards, the paper will deal with how the past has affected the main character present. This is because through her temporal subjective narrative, the viewer can live her trauma of exile and see how history and memory have contributed to the shaping of her identity.
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The ‘other London’: Black Britain’s silently salient march from New Cross to central London as re... more The ‘other London’: Black Britain’s silently salient march from New Cross to central London as represented in Blood Ah Go Run.
When thinking of London landmarks such as the Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, Hyde Park or even the double-decker red buses come to mind. However, there is much more beyond these places in London given that it is a city with many faces, especially those hidden London places or stories that do not come so quickly to the imagination when one thinks of London but that are, at the same time, intrinsically linked to the city and are part of its history. In 1981 after the New Cross fire took place, the historically neglected Black British community reacted to the years of forgetting on the part of mainstream Britain. After the fire, on the 2nd of March 1981, the Black People’s Day of Action march took place. It was an 8-hour long march starting in New Cross and finishing in Hyde Park via Fleet Street - a metonym for the British National Press. This peaceful march led by Black Britain disrupted with their chants the silent London or mainstream London with many of the city’s landmarks as a background.
Therefore, this paper aims at exploring ‘the other’ London, the London that is not so easily accessible or overt and that is not the one which mainstream cinema or TV would deal with. In other words, this paper will deal with how the Black British community, living in ‘hidden London’ as ‘the other’ gained voice following the march of the Black People’s Day of Action by referring to what this day signifies for the community with London as a background. This objective will be achieved by using Menelik Shabazz’s documentary Blood Ah Go Run (1982) as a tool of analysis where images and video footage from the day of the march are present. The first section of this paper will provide a context for the Black People’s Day of Action concerning the importance of this happening for the memory and struggle of black Britain showing London as linked to a community or identity, Black Britishness. Then, in the following section, the streets of London where the march happened will be described and analysed as an example of ‘the trauma of the streets’ with the aim of, as Guha states, “chart a certain imaginary of the city in relation to another kind of figure, the Caribbean migrant or settler, arriving in Britain at the end of the Empire” (2009). In the final section, it will be argued how this march opened up a space for a hidden part of a London community in the city taking into account the events that followed the march such as the 1981 uprisings and the institutional response to it given that after the uprisings numerous Workshops made up of Afro-British filmmakers such as Ceddo, Sankofa or BAFC were established and managed to set the record straight and challenge the traditional representation of their communities, showing and recording in this way London from the point of view of ‘the other’.
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Afro-British Audiovisual Culture from the Thatcher Era to the End of the Millennium: Memory, Iden... more Afro-British Audiovisual Culture from the Thatcher Era to the End of the Millennium: Memory, Identity, and Experimentation
During the 1980s, several Afro-British film collectives emerged in the United Kingdom to challenge how they had been historically and stereotypically portrayed in British media and to try to give a response to the social unrest that the country was facing in that decade. The collectives in my research are the workshops Ceddo (1985-1992), the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC, 1982-1998) and, Sankofa (1983-1997). They were collectives made up of filmmakers who articulated important reflections on post- colonial identities in contemporary Britain. These collectives developed their
productions following intellectual influences such as C.L.R James, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, and Frantz Fanon as well as aesthetic ones such as New Latin American cinema, cinema vérité, or experimental cinema among others. Sankofa, BAFC, and Ceddo succeeded in showing what it means to be British and black from the perspective of the Afro-descendant communities themselves in an unprecedented exercise of self- definition since traditionally these communities were represented through the eyes of people from outside the community.
In my thesis, I use the productions of these collectives as a tool of analysis to explore how they deal with questions related to temporality, identity, memory, and space through their avant-garde practice. In fact, these themes and the theories related to them are to be taken as my intended methodology and the collective’s productions my corpus under consideration. My results so far are, on the one hand, that these filmmakers produced a cinema that was challenging visually at the same time that accessible and community-oriented and, on the other hand, that they managed to open up the space for Black British cinema in a convoluted social, political and cultural period setting the record straight concerning previous representations of Black Britishness and the diaspora experience.
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Brushing history ‘against the grain’: the hidden visual (hi)stories of Black Britain through sile... more Brushing history ‘against the grain’: the hidden visual (hi)stories of Black Britain through silences and absences. The case of BAFC, Sankofa and Ceddo.The memory of those who have been pigeonholed on the margins of society is difficult to trace given that the insistence on saving their memory or stories has not been as stark as for groups placed at the centre. In other words, their stories have been constructed in contraposition to main
narratives. However, the archive is one of the places where the memory of minorities can be found as well as a space where the voiceless can gain a voice. The archive is understood, following Derrida, not merely as “a place to which knowledge is consigned, with (…) the problems of the
institutionalisation of knowledge (…) but also a general feature of our mental lives that can be questioned and examined” ( as quoted in Gibbons, 2009: 130).
Taking these ideas into account, this paper aims at showing how the “memory” and productions of some independent black filmmaking collectives are stored (or not) around different archives in London to show the importance of having a space holding all the information together. In particular, the collectives that will be tackled will be the Black Audio Film Collective, Sankofa and Ceddo. The first part of the paper will explore the historical context under which the collectives were born.
They will be taken as an example of narrative disruption as well as pioneers in black British independent filmmaking. Then, I will move on to consider how their productions are kept (or not) in several archives of the city together with the possible implications of the absences of some of their productions in the explored archives. Finally, I will point out what is currently being done in terms of archiving the memory of these collectives together with its link to the preservation of the AfroBritish identity using June Givanni’s Panafrican Archive as an example of this.
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Decolonisation and Anglicisation in Home Away from Home (1992) by Sankofa: Rootlessness and non-b... more Decolonisation and Anglicisation in Home Away from Home (1992) by Sankofa: Rootlessness and non-belonging
The experience of migration extends beyond the immediate period of relocation, as its effects can be felt across multiple generations. While personal and intimate, migration is intricately linked to broader social experiences and memories, as it has a profound impact on the communities affected by the experience. Indeed, individual recollections cannot be detached from their social context (Halbwachs, 1992). The Black British community, the focus of this paper, has historically been relegated to the margins of society, resulting in their voices and experiences being unheard by the dominant 'imagined community' (Anderson, 1983). As a result, their history and experiences have been underrepresented.
The experience of second-generation migrants is particularly complex, as they are born and raised in a foreign country while simultaneously navigating their parents' cultural background. These individuals create their own memories, shaped by their experiences of living between two worlds and, therefore, live in a twilight zone of belonging while their parents strive to maintain their cultural roots. Memory, in this context, serves as a crucial element that connects the two worlds, as it influences both what is remembered and how it is recalled. This paper argues that art, specifically cinema, provides a gateway to access memory, as it serves as a physical manifestation of otherwise intangible memories (Alter, 2018, p.195).
Therefore, the present paper seeks to accomplish two primary objectives. Firstly, it aims to investigate how first-generation migrants maintain their cultural heritage and transmit it to subsequent generations in a new country, despite facing various challenges. Secondly, this paper aims to explore the experiences of second-generation migrants who were born in a foreign country and have limited personal recollections of their ancestral roots. This will be achieved using cinema as a tool of analysis. The documentary chosen will be Home Away from Home (1992) by Sankofa, a documentary that examines the two objectives this paper pursues through the character of Miriam, who migrated to London at a young age, and her children's experiences of growing up in England.
This documentary offers a unique perspective on how memories can be used to connect the past and the future. By juxtaposing personal recollections with collective memories, Home Away from Home (1992) illustrates the opportunities that memory provides for reflection on migration experiences. This paper will commence by contextualizing the issues addressed in the documentary. Subsequently, it will explore how migration experiences affect different generations, and finally, emphasize the importance of remembering one's roots in taking a decisive stance for the future.
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ARCHIVAL INTERVENTION TO REMEDIATE THE BIASED REPRESENTATION OF BLACK BRITISHNESS The case of pas... more ARCHIVAL INTERVENTION TO REMEDIATE THE BIASED REPRESENTATION OF BLACK BRITISHNESS The case of passion of remembrance (1986) by Sankofa flm and video collective
This paper investigates o the use of archival materials in the flm The
Passion of Remembrance by Sankofa. It shows how the visual archive is a
site of both remediation and intervention in the construction of identities
and collective memory. This flm establishes a compelling dialogue in past
and present registers encompassing the complex interplay between the
process of forgetting and remembering inherent in the (de)construction
of black Britishness. By incorporating visual material disseminated
by British media, which is based on stereotypes, the flm effectively
constructs a counter-narrative to challenge misrepresentation. This
paper will frstly contextualise the broader historical and socio-cultural
framework in which Sankofa emerged. This contextualisation is crucial
for comprehending the collective’s deliberate utilization of the archive
as a fundamental source of raw material of remediation. Subsequently,
the signifcance of The Passion of Remembrance will be underscored,
elucidating both its use of archival materials and the underlying
purposes they serve in the flm’s narrative. This will be achieved through
the analysis of a specifc scene. Ultimately, this paper will demonstrate
how the collective’s intervention in the archive facilitates the creation of
a new representation of black Britishness no longer pigeonholed to the
margins.
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The 1980s Black Film and Video Workshops Ceddo, Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa highlight... more The 1980s Black Film and Video Workshops Ceddo, Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa highlighting the Importance of Television.
In the 1980s, Ceddo, Black Audio Film Collective, and Sankofa were three London based film and video workshops that countered stereotypes about black Britishness through their experimental productions. Their works are characterised by the intersection of race, sexuality, and gender against the social and political background of Thatcherism. Therefore, discrimination at various levels can be investigated through their works. Their collective practice and the language they created left a consciousness-raising legacy for future generations of filmmakers who followed their path of subversion using cinema as a weapon. Their productions were mostly financed and transmitted by Channel 4. As such, they are an example of the role of television is both catering diversity and giving voice to the voiceless. Their productions show that cinema and TV can be tools of inspiration, education, remediation of stereotypes and creation leading to a more inclusive and equal society.
This proposal focuses on the change in narrative that these collectives brought to the UK thanks to the appearance of Channel 4. Channel 4 founding of independent black films and its transmission on TV included new images about the black British experience away from misconceptions and essentialist representations. This aim will be achieved by exploring how the topics of some of their productions gave an answer to a society that was in crisis fostering education on matters related to minorities and managing at the same time to encapsulate the road towards equality in race-relations. In fact, training and education was part of the agenda of these collectives. This paper will start by exploring the origins of the film collectives and the context that gave rise to them. After this, I will show how their productions respond to the goal of television and education as well as diversity. Finally, this paper will demonstrate how television is a tool that can address current issues with examples already set up in the past.
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The return of forgotten history and the power of collective memory: black Britain and the New Cro... more The return of forgotten history and the power of collective memory: black Britain and the New Cross Fire of 1981.
This paper aims to underscore the power of collective memory in the black British community when it comes to unveiling forgotten histories and these are brought to the foreground. This is evidenced through the episode of the New Cross fire in 1981 and its consequences in this year as a catalyst for the riots of 1981 all over the United Kingdom. The documentary Blood Ah Go Run (1982) by Kuumba explores the aftermath of this episode and its importance for the black British community. Additionally, Jus Soli (2015) by SomebodyNobody also explores this issue. A production further tackling it indicates that the event is still latent in black Britain’s memory. Both documentaries are different in form and not in content and that is why they are relevant tool of analysis for the objectives of this paper.
Three interconnected issues will be examined to achieve the objective. First, the New CrossFire, where thirteen black individuals perished and received minimal attention, highlighting the imperative for the black community's voices to be heard. The inadequate police response, obscured by media and government cover-ups denying its racial nature, will be dealt with. Second, the Black People's Day of Action, a direct response to government inaction, showcases the potency of black community unity. Attempts to thwart this peaceful demonstration will also be discussed. These issues culminate in the final section, revealing the interconnectedness of events leading to the 1981 riots, such as those in Brixton, Toxteth, and Moss Side.
The New Cross fire becomes the catalyst for historical neglect and criminalization of the black community in the UK, emphasizing the relevance of black community unity. The concluding section emphasizes the rallying cry, "the people united will never be defeated," asserting that the collective memory of black Britain as a transformative moment, fostering a sense of unity and empowerment within the black community. This marked the beginning of a new chapter, challenging the historical marginalization of black people in the United Kingdom.
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Papers by María Piqueras-Pérez
The diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement” as Stuart Hall claims is a narrative that has always been
present in the United Kingdom. That is why, the main objective
of this paper is to explore the other British identity: mixed-identity as present inTherefore, this paper will analyse mixed-identitywith a focus on Black Liverpool given that the Black community
there offers a new vision of the British identity. This objective will
be achieved with the help of John Akomfrah’s documentary A
Touch of the Tar Brush which traces mixed-identity in Liverpudlian
families since the 1930s onwards. The importance of Liverpool
when it comes to Black Britishness cannot be denied due to its
multicultural relevance and the fact that it is home to the oldest
black community in the UK. Furthermore, in order to analyse
this objective three different but related ideas will be explored.
The first one will be what Britishness is and why Black identity
is constructed in opposition to this one. The second will be an
analysis of mixed-race culture in Liverpool. Moreover, the final
argument is related to the example set up by the Black community of Liverpool and how they are the example of a new British
identity. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even
if the Liverpudlian Black community lives in a twilight zone of
belonging and non-belonging, the black Britishness displayed in
Liverpool opens up the possibility of a new British identity.
Book Reviews by María Piqueras-Pérez
Thesis Chapters by María Piqueras-Pérez
Conference Presentations by María Piqueras-Pérez
In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E. B Du Bois explores how it feel to be a problem and how one deals with looking at themselves through the eyes of others. That is why the main objective of this paper is to explore how these questions DuBois addresses are present in the cinematic representation of the other. In other words, it aims at exploring how the other is perceived by the country’s long-established dwellers and how they look at themselves through their own eyes and the eyes of their country-fellows. This objective will be achieved with the help of Maureen Blackwood’s documentary Home Away from Home which tackles the experience of loneliness of migration. In this documentary, the protagonist recreates her Nigerian home in her British garden a fact facing hostility on the part of her British neighbours. Furthermore, to achieve this objective three different but related ideas will be addressed. The first one will be how migrants adapt or not to their new environment, here the power of cultural memory will be explored. The second idea will be an examination of how the country deals with the new situation created by the newcomers, under this idea hostility towards migrants will be analysed. After this, how this situation of being in the middle of two cultures with reference to the kids of the newcomers will be studied. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even if the newcomers try to rely on their culture’s memory and the nostalgia it brings, the country they live in urges them to adapt or leave.
“The diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement” as Stuart Hall claims is a narrative that has always been present in the United Kingdom. That is why, the main objective of this paper is to explore the other British identity: mixed-identity as present in the Black British community. Therefore, this paper will analyse mixed-identity with a focus on Black Liverpool given that the Black community there offers a new vision of the British identity. This objective will be achieved with the help of John Akomfrah's documentary A Touch of the Tar Brush which traces mixed-identity in Liverpudlian families since the 1930s onwards. The importance of Liverpool when it comes to Black Britishness cannot be denied due to its multicultural relevance and the fact that it is home to the oldest black community in the UK. Furthermore, in order to analyse this objective three different but related ideas will be explored. The first one will be what Britishness is and why Black identity is constructed in opposition to this one. The second will be an analysis of mixed-race culture in Liverpool. Moreover, the final argument is related to the example set up by the Black community of Liverpool and how they are the example of a new British identity. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even if the Liverpudlian Black community lives in a twilight zone of belonging and non-belonging, the black Britishness displayed in Liverpool opens up the possibility of a new British identity.
Keywords: Liverpool, Independent Black Cinema; Multiculturalism, Black Britishness, Mixed-identity.
As Elizabeth Grosz writes, “time is perhaps the most enigmatic, the most paradoxical, elusive and ‘unreal’ of any form of material existence” (2004, p. 4). However, cinema has the power of portraying temporal spaces given that it represents abstract concepts such as identity or otherness (Alter 2018; Rascaroli 2017). Time is neither linear nor universally experienced in the same way. In fact, time in relation to the construction of identity shows an understanding of existence as possessing multiple layers depending on whether it is regarded or experienced from a past, present or future perspective. When lineal time is disrupted, in other words, when ‘chrononormative’ time (Freeman, 2010) is not followed, identities constructed in the margins of what would be considered the standard or normative appear. This is the case of those identities that are taken as diverse or as ‘the other’. Moreover, history through time becomes part of memory be it private or public which can lead to tensions between the two when it comes to excavating how they have been recorded concerning identity.
With these ideas in mind, this paper aims at exploring the temporal ruptures and their repercussion on the construction of a postcolonial identity. This objective will be achieved through the documentary Testament (1988) by the Black Audio Film Collective, which will be used as a tool of analysis. The identity explored in Testament (1988) is the one of a Ghanian exile returning to her mother country. This makes her enter a warzone of memories where she has to face the past that was left behind together with everything that she could have become but could not because her future was abruptly cut off by the experience of exile. The documentary combines both public and private memory as well as history to show what happens when the expected temporal linearity goes astray. In fact, the protagonist is a “time traveller” who constantly juggles with the past and the present opening up different layers of meaning. The documentary portrays this by mixing fact and fiction in the form of an essay film. This format thinks interstitially, forges gaps and creates disjunction to account for the gaps of memory (Rascaroli, 2017). In order to achieve these objectives, this paper will firstly explore the context under which Testament (1988) is released together with the time-frame it encapsulates and some basic notions to understand its analysis. Then, it will move on to explore how the disjunctions of time work with regards to the construction of identity. Here, there will be an emphasis on the past with reference to history and memory. Afterwards, the paper will deal with how the past has affected the main character present. This is because through her temporal subjective narrative, the viewer can live her trauma of exile and see how history and memory have contributed to the shaping of her identity.
When thinking of London landmarks such as the Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, Hyde Park or even the double-decker red buses come to mind. However, there is much more beyond these places in London given that it is a city with many faces, especially those hidden London places or stories that do not come so quickly to the imagination when one thinks of London but that are, at the same time, intrinsically linked to the city and are part of its history. In 1981 after the New Cross fire took place, the historically neglected Black British community reacted to the years of forgetting on the part of mainstream Britain. After the fire, on the 2nd of March 1981, the Black People’s Day of Action march took place. It was an 8-hour long march starting in New Cross and finishing in Hyde Park via Fleet Street - a metonym for the British National Press. This peaceful march led by Black Britain disrupted with their chants the silent London or mainstream London with many of the city’s landmarks as a background.
Therefore, this paper aims at exploring ‘the other’ London, the London that is not so easily accessible or overt and that is not the one which mainstream cinema or TV would deal with. In other words, this paper will deal with how the Black British community, living in ‘hidden London’ as ‘the other’ gained voice following the march of the Black People’s Day of Action by referring to what this day signifies for the community with London as a background. This objective will be achieved by using Menelik Shabazz’s documentary Blood Ah Go Run (1982) as a tool of analysis where images and video footage from the day of the march are present. The first section of this paper will provide a context for the Black People’s Day of Action concerning the importance of this happening for the memory and struggle of black Britain showing London as linked to a community or identity, Black Britishness. Then, in the following section, the streets of London where the march happened will be described and analysed as an example of ‘the trauma of the streets’ with the aim of, as Guha states, “chart a certain imaginary of the city in relation to another kind of figure, the Caribbean migrant or settler, arriving in Britain at the end of the Empire” (2009). In the final section, it will be argued how this march opened up a space for a hidden part of a London community in the city taking into account the events that followed the march such as the 1981 uprisings and the institutional response to it given that after the uprisings numerous Workshops made up of Afro-British filmmakers such as Ceddo, Sankofa or BAFC were established and managed to set the record straight and challenge the traditional representation of their communities, showing and recording in this way London from the point of view of ‘the other’.
During the 1980s, several Afro-British film collectives emerged in the United Kingdom to challenge how they had been historically and stereotypically portrayed in British media and to try to give a response to the social unrest that the country was facing in that decade. The collectives in my research are the workshops Ceddo (1985-1992), the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC, 1982-1998) and, Sankofa (1983-1997). They were collectives made up of filmmakers who articulated important reflections on post- colonial identities in contemporary Britain. These collectives developed their
productions following intellectual influences such as C.L.R James, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, and Frantz Fanon as well as aesthetic ones such as New Latin American cinema, cinema vérité, or experimental cinema among others. Sankofa, BAFC, and Ceddo succeeded in showing what it means to be British and black from the perspective of the Afro-descendant communities themselves in an unprecedented exercise of self- definition since traditionally these communities were represented through the eyes of people from outside the community.
In my thesis, I use the productions of these collectives as a tool of analysis to explore how they deal with questions related to temporality, identity, memory, and space through their avant-garde practice. In fact, these themes and the theories related to them are to be taken as my intended methodology and the collective’s productions my corpus under consideration. My results so far are, on the one hand, that these filmmakers produced a cinema that was challenging visually at the same time that accessible and community-oriented and, on the other hand, that they managed to open up the space for Black British cinema in a convoluted social, political and cultural period setting the record straight concerning previous representations of Black Britishness and the diaspora experience.
narratives. However, the archive is one of the places where the memory of minorities can be found as well as a space where the voiceless can gain a voice. The archive is understood, following Derrida, not merely as “a place to which knowledge is consigned, with (…) the problems of the
institutionalisation of knowledge (…) but also a general feature of our mental lives that can be questioned and examined” ( as quoted in Gibbons, 2009: 130).
Taking these ideas into account, this paper aims at showing how the “memory” and productions of some independent black filmmaking collectives are stored (or not) around different archives in London to show the importance of having a space holding all the information together. In particular, the collectives that will be tackled will be the Black Audio Film Collective, Sankofa and Ceddo. The first part of the paper will explore the historical context under which the collectives were born.
They will be taken as an example of narrative disruption as well as pioneers in black British independent filmmaking. Then, I will move on to consider how their productions are kept (or not) in several archives of the city together with the possible implications of the absences of some of their productions in the explored archives. Finally, I will point out what is currently being done in terms of archiving the memory of these collectives together with its link to the preservation of the AfroBritish identity using June Givanni’s Panafrican Archive as an example of this.
The experience of migration extends beyond the immediate period of relocation, as its effects can be felt across multiple generations. While personal and intimate, migration is intricately linked to broader social experiences and memories, as it has a profound impact on the communities affected by the experience. Indeed, individual recollections cannot be detached from their social context (Halbwachs, 1992). The Black British community, the focus of this paper, has historically been relegated to the margins of society, resulting in their voices and experiences being unheard by the dominant 'imagined community' (Anderson, 1983). As a result, their history and experiences have been underrepresented.
The experience of second-generation migrants is particularly complex, as they are born and raised in a foreign country while simultaneously navigating their parents' cultural background. These individuals create their own memories, shaped by their experiences of living between two worlds and, therefore, live in a twilight zone of belonging while their parents strive to maintain their cultural roots. Memory, in this context, serves as a crucial element that connects the two worlds, as it influences both what is remembered and how it is recalled. This paper argues that art, specifically cinema, provides a gateway to access memory, as it serves as a physical manifestation of otherwise intangible memories (Alter, 2018, p.195).
Therefore, the present paper seeks to accomplish two primary objectives. Firstly, it aims to investigate how first-generation migrants maintain their cultural heritage and transmit it to subsequent generations in a new country, despite facing various challenges. Secondly, this paper aims to explore the experiences of second-generation migrants who were born in a foreign country and have limited personal recollections of their ancestral roots. This will be achieved using cinema as a tool of analysis. The documentary chosen will be Home Away from Home (1992) by Sankofa, a documentary that examines the two objectives this paper pursues through the character of Miriam, who migrated to London at a young age, and her children's experiences of growing up in England.
This documentary offers a unique perspective on how memories can be used to connect the past and the future. By juxtaposing personal recollections with collective memories, Home Away from Home (1992) illustrates the opportunities that memory provides for reflection on migration experiences. This paper will commence by contextualizing the issues addressed in the documentary. Subsequently, it will explore how migration experiences affect different generations, and finally, emphasize the importance of remembering one's roots in taking a decisive stance for the future.
This paper investigates o the use of archival materials in the flm The
Passion of Remembrance by Sankofa. It shows how the visual archive is a
site of both remediation and intervention in the construction of identities
and collective memory. This flm establishes a compelling dialogue in past
and present registers encompassing the complex interplay between the
process of forgetting and remembering inherent in the (de)construction
of black Britishness. By incorporating visual material disseminated
by British media, which is based on stereotypes, the flm effectively
constructs a counter-narrative to challenge misrepresentation. This
paper will frstly contextualise the broader historical and socio-cultural
framework in which Sankofa emerged. This contextualisation is crucial
for comprehending the collective’s deliberate utilization of the archive
as a fundamental source of raw material of remediation. Subsequently,
the signifcance of The Passion of Remembrance will be underscored,
elucidating both its use of archival materials and the underlying
purposes they serve in the flm’s narrative. This will be achieved through
the analysis of a specifc scene. Ultimately, this paper will demonstrate
how the collective’s intervention in the archive facilitates the creation of
a new representation of black Britishness no longer pigeonholed to the
margins.
In the 1980s, Ceddo, Black Audio Film Collective, and Sankofa were three London based film and video workshops that countered stereotypes about black Britishness through their experimental productions. Their works are characterised by the intersection of race, sexuality, and gender against the social and political background of Thatcherism. Therefore, discrimination at various levels can be investigated through their works. Their collective practice and the language they created left a consciousness-raising legacy for future generations of filmmakers who followed their path of subversion using cinema as a weapon. Their productions were mostly financed and transmitted by Channel 4. As such, they are an example of the role of television is both catering diversity and giving voice to the voiceless. Their productions show that cinema and TV can be tools of inspiration, education, remediation of stereotypes and creation leading to a more inclusive and equal society.
This proposal focuses on the change in narrative that these collectives brought to the UK thanks to the appearance of Channel 4. Channel 4 founding of independent black films and its transmission on TV included new images about the black British experience away from misconceptions and essentialist representations. This aim will be achieved by exploring how the topics of some of their productions gave an answer to a society that was in crisis fostering education on matters related to minorities and managing at the same time to encapsulate the road towards equality in race-relations. In fact, training and education was part of the agenda of these collectives. This paper will start by exploring the origins of the film collectives and the context that gave rise to them. After this, I will show how their productions respond to the goal of television and education as well as diversity. Finally, this paper will demonstrate how television is a tool that can address current issues with examples already set up in the past.
This paper aims to underscore the power of collective memory in the black British community when it comes to unveiling forgotten histories and these are brought to the foreground. This is evidenced through the episode of the New Cross fire in 1981 and its consequences in this year as a catalyst for the riots of 1981 all over the United Kingdom. The documentary Blood Ah Go Run (1982) by Kuumba explores the aftermath of this episode and its importance for the black British community. Additionally, Jus Soli (2015) by SomebodyNobody also explores this issue. A production further tackling it indicates that the event is still latent in black Britain’s memory. Both documentaries are different in form and not in content and that is why they are relevant tool of analysis for the objectives of this paper.
Three interconnected issues will be examined to achieve the objective. First, the New CrossFire, where thirteen black individuals perished and received minimal attention, highlighting the imperative for the black community's voices to be heard. The inadequate police response, obscured by media and government cover-ups denying its racial nature, will be dealt with. Second, the Black People's Day of Action, a direct response to government inaction, showcases the potency of black community unity. Attempts to thwart this peaceful demonstration will also be discussed. These issues culminate in the final section, revealing the interconnectedness of events leading to the 1981 riots, such as those in Brixton, Toxteth, and Moss Side.
The New Cross fire becomes the catalyst for historical neglect and criminalization of the black community in the UK, emphasizing the relevance of black community unity. The concluding section emphasizes the rallying cry, "the people united will never be defeated," asserting that the collective memory of black Britain as a transformative moment, fostering a sense of unity and empowerment within the black community. This marked the beginning of a new chapter, challenging the historical marginalization of black people in the United Kingdom.
The diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement” as Stuart Hall claims is a narrative that has always been
present in the United Kingdom. That is why, the main objective
of this paper is to explore the other British identity: mixed-identity as present inTherefore, this paper will analyse mixed-identitywith a focus on Black Liverpool given that the Black community
there offers a new vision of the British identity. This objective will
be achieved with the help of John Akomfrah’s documentary A
Touch of the Tar Brush which traces mixed-identity in Liverpudlian
families since the 1930s onwards. The importance of Liverpool
when it comes to Black Britishness cannot be denied due to its
multicultural relevance and the fact that it is home to the oldest
black community in the UK. Furthermore, in order to analyse
this objective three different but related ideas will be explored.
The first one will be what Britishness is and why Black identity
is constructed in opposition to this one. The second will be an
analysis of mixed-race culture in Liverpool. Moreover, the final
argument is related to the example set up by the Black community of Liverpool and how they are the example of a new British
identity. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even
if the Liverpudlian Black community lives in a twilight zone of
belonging and non-belonging, the black Britishness displayed in
Liverpool opens up the possibility of a new British identity.
In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E. B Du Bois explores how it feel to be a problem and how one deals with looking at themselves through the eyes of others. That is why the main objective of this paper is to explore how these questions DuBois addresses are present in the cinematic representation of the other. In other words, it aims at exploring how the other is perceived by the country’s long-established dwellers and how they look at themselves through their own eyes and the eyes of their country-fellows. This objective will be achieved with the help of Maureen Blackwood’s documentary Home Away from Home which tackles the experience of loneliness of migration. In this documentary, the protagonist recreates her Nigerian home in her British garden a fact facing hostility on the part of her British neighbours. Furthermore, to achieve this objective three different but related ideas will be addressed. The first one will be how migrants adapt or not to their new environment, here the power of cultural memory will be explored. The second idea will be an examination of how the country deals with the new situation created by the newcomers, under this idea hostility towards migrants will be analysed. After this, how this situation of being in the middle of two cultures with reference to the kids of the newcomers will be studied. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even if the newcomers try to rely on their culture’s memory and the nostalgia it brings, the country they live in urges them to adapt or leave.
“The diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement” as Stuart Hall claims is a narrative that has always been present in the United Kingdom. That is why, the main objective of this paper is to explore the other British identity: mixed-identity as present in the Black British community. Therefore, this paper will analyse mixed-identity with a focus on Black Liverpool given that the Black community there offers a new vision of the British identity. This objective will be achieved with the help of John Akomfrah's documentary A Touch of the Tar Brush which traces mixed-identity in Liverpudlian families since the 1930s onwards. The importance of Liverpool when it comes to Black Britishness cannot be denied due to its multicultural relevance and the fact that it is home to the oldest black community in the UK. Furthermore, in order to analyse this objective three different but related ideas will be explored. The first one will be what Britishness is and why Black identity is constructed in opposition to this one. The second will be an analysis of mixed-race culture in Liverpool. Moreover, the final argument is related to the example set up by the Black community of Liverpool and how they are the example of a new British identity. Finally, the conclusion of the paper will show that even if the Liverpudlian Black community lives in a twilight zone of belonging and non-belonging, the black Britishness displayed in Liverpool opens up the possibility of a new British identity.
Keywords: Liverpool, Independent Black Cinema; Multiculturalism, Black Britishness, Mixed-identity.
As Elizabeth Grosz writes, “time is perhaps the most enigmatic, the most paradoxical, elusive and ‘unreal’ of any form of material existence” (2004, p. 4). However, cinema has the power of portraying temporal spaces given that it represents abstract concepts such as identity or otherness (Alter 2018; Rascaroli 2017). Time is neither linear nor universally experienced in the same way. In fact, time in relation to the construction of identity shows an understanding of existence as possessing multiple layers depending on whether it is regarded or experienced from a past, present or future perspective. When lineal time is disrupted, in other words, when ‘chrononormative’ time (Freeman, 2010) is not followed, identities constructed in the margins of what would be considered the standard or normative appear. This is the case of those identities that are taken as diverse or as ‘the other’. Moreover, history through time becomes part of memory be it private or public which can lead to tensions between the two when it comes to excavating how they have been recorded concerning identity.
With these ideas in mind, this paper aims at exploring the temporal ruptures and their repercussion on the construction of a postcolonial identity. This objective will be achieved through the documentary Testament (1988) by the Black Audio Film Collective, which will be used as a tool of analysis. The identity explored in Testament (1988) is the one of a Ghanian exile returning to her mother country. This makes her enter a warzone of memories where she has to face the past that was left behind together with everything that she could have become but could not because her future was abruptly cut off by the experience of exile. The documentary combines both public and private memory as well as history to show what happens when the expected temporal linearity goes astray. In fact, the protagonist is a “time traveller” who constantly juggles with the past and the present opening up different layers of meaning. The documentary portrays this by mixing fact and fiction in the form of an essay film. This format thinks interstitially, forges gaps and creates disjunction to account for the gaps of memory (Rascaroli, 2017). In order to achieve these objectives, this paper will firstly explore the context under which Testament (1988) is released together with the time-frame it encapsulates and some basic notions to understand its analysis. Then, it will move on to explore how the disjunctions of time work with regards to the construction of identity. Here, there will be an emphasis on the past with reference to history and memory. Afterwards, the paper will deal with how the past has affected the main character present. This is because through her temporal subjective narrative, the viewer can live her trauma of exile and see how history and memory have contributed to the shaping of her identity.
When thinking of London landmarks such as the Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, Hyde Park or even the double-decker red buses come to mind. However, there is much more beyond these places in London given that it is a city with many faces, especially those hidden London places or stories that do not come so quickly to the imagination when one thinks of London but that are, at the same time, intrinsically linked to the city and are part of its history. In 1981 after the New Cross fire took place, the historically neglected Black British community reacted to the years of forgetting on the part of mainstream Britain. After the fire, on the 2nd of March 1981, the Black People’s Day of Action march took place. It was an 8-hour long march starting in New Cross and finishing in Hyde Park via Fleet Street - a metonym for the British National Press. This peaceful march led by Black Britain disrupted with their chants the silent London or mainstream London with many of the city’s landmarks as a background.
Therefore, this paper aims at exploring ‘the other’ London, the London that is not so easily accessible or overt and that is not the one which mainstream cinema or TV would deal with. In other words, this paper will deal with how the Black British community, living in ‘hidden London’ as ‘the other’ gained voice following the march of the Black People’s Day of Action by referring to what this day signifies for the community with London as a background. This objective will be achieved by using Menelik Shabazz’s documentary Blood Ah Go Run (1982) as a tool of analysis where images and video footage from the day of the march are present. The first section of this paper will provide a context for the Black People’s Day of Action concerning the importance of this happening for the memory and struggle of black Britain showing London as linked to a community or identity, Black Britishness. Then, in the following section, the streets of London where the march happened will be described and analysed as an example of ‘the trauma of the streets’ with the aim of, as Guha states, “chart a certain imaginary of the city in relation to another kind of figure, the Caribbean migrant or settler, arriving in Britain at the end of the Empire” (2009). In the final section, it will be argued how this march opened up a space for a hidden part of a London community in the city taking into account the events that followed the march such as the 1981 uprisings and the institutional response to it given that after the uprisings numerous Workshops made up of Afro-British filmmakers such as Ceddo, Sankofa or BAFC were established and managed to set the record straight and challenge the traditional representation of their communities, showing and recording in this way London from the point of view of ‘the other’.
During the 1980s, several Afro-British film collectives emerged in the United Kingdom to challenge how they had been historically and stereotypically portrayed in British media and to try to give a response to the social unrest that the country was facing in that decade. The collectives in my research are the workshops Ceddo (1985-1992), the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC, 1982-1998) and, Sankofa (1983-1997). They were collectives made up of filmmakers who articulated important reflections on post- colonial identities in contemporary Britain. These collectives developed their
productions following intellectual influences such as C.L.R James, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, and Frantz Fanon as well as aesthetic ones such as New Latin American cinema, cinema vérité, or experimental cinema among others. Sankofa, BAFC, and Ceddo succeeded in showing what it means to be British and black from the perspective of the Afro-descendant communities themselves in an unprecedented exercise of self- definition since traditionally these communities were represented through the eyes of people from outside the community.
In my thesis, I use the productions of these collectives as a tool of analysis to explore how they deal with questions related to temporality, identity, memory, and space through their avant-garde practice. In fact, these themes and the theories related to them are to be taken as my intended methodology and the collective’s productions my corpus under consideration. My results so far are, on the one hand, that these filmmakers produced a cinema that was challenging visually at the same time that accessible and community-oriented and, on the other hand, that they managed to open up the space for Black British cinema in a convoluted social, political and cultural period setting the record straight concerning previous representations of Black Britishness and the diaspora experience.
narratives. However, the archive is one of the places where the memory of minorities can be found as well as a space where the voiceless can gain a voice. The archive is understood, following Derrida, not merely as “a place to which knowledge is consigned, with (…) the problems of the
institutionalisation of knowledge (…) but also a general feature of our mental lives that can be questioned and examined” ( as quoted in Gibbons, 2009: 130).
Taking these ideas into account, this paper aims at showing how the “memory” and productions of some independent black filmmaking collectives are stored (or not) around different archives in London to show the importance of having a space holding all the information together. In particular, the collectives that will be tackled will be the Black Audio Film Collective, Sankofa and Ceddo. The first part of the paper will explore the historical context under which the collectives were born.
They will be taken as an example of narrative disruption as well as pioneers in black British independent filmmaking. Then, I will move on to consider how their productions are kept (or not) in several archives of the city together with the possible implications of the absences of some of their productions in the explored archives. Finally, I will point out what is currently being done in terms of archiving the memory of these collectives together with its link to the preservation of the AfroBritish identity using June Givanni’s Panafrican Archive as an example of this.
The experience of migration extends beyond the immediate period of relocation, as its effects can be felt across multiple generations. While personal and intimate, migration is intricately linked to broader social experiences and memories, as it has a profound impact on the communities affected by the experience. Indeed, individual recollections cannot be detached from their social context (Halbwachs, 1992). The Black British community, the focus of this paper, has historically been relegated to the margins of society, resulting in their voices and experiences being unheard by the dominant 'imagined community' (Anderson, 1983). As a result, their history and experiences have been underrepresented.
The experience of second-generation migrants is particularly complex, as they are born and raised in a foreign country while simultaneously navigating their parents' cultural background. These individuals create their own memories, shaped by their experiences of living between two worlds and, therefore, live in a twilight zone of belonging while their parents strive to maintain their cultural roots. Memory, in this context, serves as a crucial element that connects the two worlds, as it influences both what is remembered and how it is recalled. This paper argues that art, specifically cinema, provides a gateway to access memory, as it serves as a physical manifestation of otherwise intangible memories (Alter, 2018, p.195).
Therefore, the present paper seeks to accomplish two primary objectives. Firstly, it aims to investigate how first-generation migrants maintain their cultural heritage and transmit it to subsequent generations in a new country, despite facing various challenges. Secondly, this paper aims to explore the experiences of second-generation migrants who were born in a foreign country and have limited personal recollections of their ancestral roots. This will be achieved using cinema as a tool of analysis. The documentary chosen will be Home Away from Home (1992) by Sankofa, a documentary that examines the two objectives this paper pursues through the character of Miriam, who migrated to London at a young age, and her children's experiences of growing up in England.
This documentary offers a unique perspective on how memories can be used to connect the past and the future. By juxtaposing personal recollections with collective memories, Home Away from Home (1992) illustrates the opportunities that memory provides for reflection on migration experiences. This paper will commence by contextualizing the issues addressed in the documentary. Subsequently, it will explore how migration experiences affect different generations, and finally, emphasize the importance of remembering one's roots in taking a decisive stance for the future.
This paper investigates o the use of archival materials in the flm The
Passion of Remembrance by Sankofa. It shows how the visual archive is a
site of both remediation and intervention in the construction of identities
and collective memory. This flm establishes a compelling dialogue in past
and present registers encompassing the complex interplay between the
process of forgetting and remembering inherent in the (de)construction
of black Britishness. By incorporating visual material disseminated
by British media, which is based on stereotypes, the flm effectively
constructs a counter-narrative to challenge misrepresentation. This
paper will frstly contextualise the broader historical and socio-cultural
framework in which Sankofa emerged. This contextualisation is crucial
for comprehending the collective’s deliberate utilization of the archive
as a fundamental source of raw material of remediation. Subsequently,
the signifcance of The Passion of Remembrance will be underscored,
elucidating both its use of archival materials and the underlying
purposes they serve in the flm’s narrative. This will be achieved through
the analysis of a specifc scene. Ultimately, this paper will demonstrate
how the collective’s intervention in the archive facilitates the creation of
a new representation of black Britishness no longer pigeonholed to the
margins.
In the 1980s, Ceddo, Black Audio Film Collective, and Sankofa were three London based film and video workshops that countered stereotypes about black Britishness through their experimental productions. Their works are characterised by the intersection of race, sexuality, and gender against the social and political background of Thatcherism. Therefore, discrimination at various levels can be investigated through their works. Their collective practice and the language they created left a consciousness-raising legacy for future generations of filmmakers who followed their path of subversion using cinema as a weapon. Their productions were mostly financed and transmitted by Channel 4. As such, they are an example of the role of television is both catering diversity and giving voice to the voiceless. Their productions show that cinema and TV can be tools of inspiration, education, remediation of stereotypes and creation leading to a more inclusive and equal society.
This proposal focuses on the change in narrative that these collectives brought to the UK thanks to the appearance of Channel 4. Channel 4 founding of independent black films and its transmission on TV included new images about the black British experience away from misconceptions and essentialist representations. This aim will be achieved by exploring how the topics of some of their productions gave an answer to a society that was in crisis fostering education on matters related to minorities and managing at the same time to encapsulate the road towards equality in race-relations. In fact, training and education was part of the agenda of these collectives. This paper will start by exploring the origins of the film collectives and the context that gave rise to them. After this, I will show how their productions respond to the goal of television and education as well as diversity. Finally, this paper will demonstrate how television is a tool that can address current issues with examples already set up in the past.
This paper aims to underscore the power of collective memory in the black British community when it comes to unveiling forgotten histories and these are brought to the foreground. This is evidenced through the episode of the New Cross fire in 1981 and its consequences in this year as a catalyst for the riots of 1981 all over the United Kingdom. The documentary Blood Ah Go Run (1982) by Kuumba explores the aftermath of this episode and its importance for the black British community. Additionally, Jus Soli (2015) by SomebodyNobody also explores this issue. A production further tackling it indicates that the event is still latent in black Britain’s memory. Both documentaries are different in form and not in content and that is why they are relevant tool of analysis for the objectives of this paper.
Three interconnected issues will be examined to achieve the objective. First, the New CrossFire, where thirteen black individuals perished and received minimal attention, highlighting the imperative for the black community's voices to be heard. The inadequate police response, obscured by media and government cover-ups denying its racial nature, will be dealt with. Second, the Black People's Day of Action, a direct response to government inaction, showcases the potency of black community unity. Attempts to thwart this peaceful demonstration will also be discussed. These issues culminate in the final section, revealing the interconnectedness of events leading to the 1981 riots, such as those in Brixton, Toxteth, and Moss Side.
The New Cross fire becomes the catalyst for historical neglect and criminalization of the black community in the UK, emphasizing the relevance of black community unity. The concluding section emphasizes the rallying cry, "the people united will never be defeated," asserting that the collective memory of black Britain as a transformative moment, fostering a sense of unity and empowerment within the black community. This marked the beginning of a new chapter, challenging the historical marginalization of black people in the United Kingdom.
Television and cinema serve as reflections of reality, shaping identity and exploring the complex processes of national self-definition. However, traditional cinema often fails to fully represent all identities within the hegemonic imagined community. Consequently, alternative cinema emerges as a counter-hegemonic force, capable of critiquing and challenging official narratives. In the 1980s numerous black British workshops in the United Kingdom emerged with the aim of addressing the pressing political and social challenges faced by the black British community. Prominent among these collectives were Sankofa, Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC), and Ceddo. Through their creative output, these groups sought to challenge and subvert prevailing representations and constructions of the black diaspora in the United Kingdom.
Leveraging the medium of cinema, particularly through the essay film genre, they endeavoured to articulate their ideas and engage in a process of 'deconstruction' concerning the black identity, as shaped by mainstream British media. Simultaneously, they sought to excavate and reclaim the suppressed and manipulated collective memory of black Britain. However, the black British identity existed on the fringes of society, residing within the "interstices," marginalized and denied coexistence within the dominant narrative of the hegemonic community. Consequently, these collectives employed original footage while critically engaging with the available visual and textual archives, endeavouring to construct and reconstruct the memory of their community. In doing so, they purposefully blurred the boundaries between history and memory, challenging conventional delineations and narrative framework and redefining notions of identity and its relationship to the nation.
Drawing on Nora Alter’s concept of memory finding physical shape through art, this paper aims at analysing how these collectives reshaped narratives of black Britishness by correcting misrepresentation and reclaiming untold histories challenging at the same time the understanding of what it means to be British. This paper presents a case study, focusing on Black Audio Film Collective’s production Expeditions II: Images of Nationality (1983), to illustrate how these collectives challenged the state of the nation. This paper will begin with a contextual overview of the collectives’ origins and their socio-political significance. Then, it analyses Expeditions II: Images of Nationality to demonstrate the fluidity of boundaries and identities in confronting unrecorded histories and memories. The conclusion will highlight how these collectives contribute to a deeper understanding of the state of the nation filmmaking making it more inclusive.