Ph03nix Rising: The 3rd Son

‘Finding Fanon’ is the first part in a series of works by artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy; inspired by the lost plays of Frantz Fanon, (1925-1961) a politically radical humanist whose practice dealt with the psychopathology of colonisation and the social and cultural consequences of decolonisation. In the film, the two artists negotiate Fanon’s ideas, examining the politics of race, racism and the post-colonial, and how these societal issues affect their relationship. Their conflict is played out through a script that melds found texts and personal testimony, transposing their drama to a junkyard houseboat at an unspecified time in the future. Navigating the past, present and future, Achiampong and Blandy question the promise of globalisation, recognising its impact on their own heritage.

The fourth film in the series, ‘Relic 3’ forms part of Relic Traveller: Phase 2, a multi-disciplinary project by Larry Achiampong, which manifests in performance, audio, moving image and prose. Centred within themes related to Sanko-time, Relic Traveller takes place across various landscapes and locations; the project builds upon a postcolonial perspective informed by technology, agency and the body, and narratives of migration.

Set during a pandemic, the film tracks the movements of its central protagonist – The Wanderer, a young girl, on an intrepid journey across England. Presented across six chapters, including ‘The North’, ‘The Land of Smoke’ and ‘The Kingdom of the East’, this epic film builds a dialogue around the themes of class and economic exclusion, belonging and displacement, cultural heritage and the meaning of home.

Reliquary 2 was a response to COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown. The film is a work formed of animated sequences and drone footage from Achiampong’s personal archives, featuring an original score. Created as a meditation on a period of separation between the artist and his children, observing his familial narrative within the pandemic and the trauma of forced isolation during unprecedented times. Speaking directly to his children, Reliquary 2 is an archive of contemplative prose and a historical record documenting this surreal and challenging period. Reliquary 2 is a continuation of the Relic Traveller series. Mixing visual poetry with generational healing, the series explores past, present, and future, through narratives of Pan Africanism and African diasporic identity in relation to colonialism, postcolonialism and the heightened nationalism of recent times.

The third film in the series, ‘Relic 2’ forms part of Relic Traveller: Phase 2, a multi-disciplinary project by Larry Achiampong, which manifests in performance, audio, moving image and prose. Centred within themes related to Sanko-time, Relic Traveller takes place across various landscapes and locations; the project builds upon a postcolonial perspective informed by technology, agency and the body, and narratives of migration.

A deeply personal work highlighting the rich interior world of an unnamed migrant through the lens of race, class and gender. The piece invokes the energy and memories of a pre-gentrified 1990s east London, deftly weaving testimonies and daydreams into the monotonous rhythms of physical labour.

The first film in the series, 'Relic 0' forms part of Larry Achiampong's Relic Traveller: Phase 1, a multi-disciplinary project manifesting in performance, audio, moving image and prose. Taking place across various landscapes and locations, the project builds upon a postcolonial perspective informed by technology, agency and the body, and narratives of migration. Relic 0, which is the prelude to the series, is a short film that moves between African and Western based vistas and focuses on specific architectures of colonialism as delivered by an anonymous narrator. These discoveries deliver poetic moments of the sublime met with increasingly harrowing tales of trauma - speaking to the sinister way that states of anxiety, fear and displacement are both generated and policed in postcolonial society. The throb of the electronic score and ringing clarity of the narrator's testimony usher in a new landscape and temporality, born from cracks in a traumatised, apocalyptic present.

The second film in the series, 'Relic 1' forms part of Larry Achiampong's Relic Traveller: Phase 1, a multi-disciplinary project manifesting in performance, audio, moving image and prose. Taking place across various landscapes and locations, the project builds upon a postcolonial perspective informed by technology, agency and the body, and narratives of migration. In the short film, a Relic Traveller is featured apparating sites across a seemingly desolate United Kingdom. Uncovering fragments of audible data presenting clue-like testimonies to a forgotten Empire, the Relic Traveller soon finds themselves in an atmosphere that simultaneously delivers poetic moments of the sublime met with increasingly harrowing claustrophobia and tales of trauma. Thus resulting in a familiar feeling of otherness, we are invited on a journey that embodies hysteria.

"Finding Fanon Part Three" is inspired by the lost plays of Frantz Fanon (1925–1961), a radical humanist, psychiatrist and writer whose work explored the mental distress caused by colonisation and the consequences of decolonisation. Achiampong and Blandy re-interpret Fanon’s ideas, and how the politics of race affect relationships in an age of digital technology and globalisation.

'Finding Fanon 2' collides art-house cinema with digital culture’s Machinima, resulting in a work that explores the post-colonial condition from inside a simulated environment – the Grand Theft Auto 5 in-game video editor. This video work combines several stories, including how the artists’ familial histories relate to colonial history, an examination of how their relationship is formed through the virtual space, and thoughts on the implications of the post-human condition. The Finding Fanon series is inspired by the lost plays of Frantz Fanon, (1925-1961) a politically radical humanist whose practice dealt with the psychopathology of colonisation and the social and cultural consequences of decolonisation. Throughout the series, Achiampong and Blandy negotiate Fanon’s ideas, examining the politics of race, racism and decolonisation, and how these societal issues affect our relationship amidst an age of new technology, popular culture and globalisation.

The history of eugenics and explore its present-day legacy in philosophical, poetic and polemic terms. Filmed in two halves, the first is voiced by Blandy, who is white and middle class, born in London, of English heritage. He alludes to intelligence tests, racist and sexist discrimination, and the systemic use of sterilisation across the Western world, all under the guise of objective science. In the second half of the film, a lyrical yet powerful account that questions the limits of empathy in the struggle against injustice, suggesting that what is needed is not simply solidarity but real change, which would necessitate the demolition of generations of privilege. This part of the film visually invites the viewers into an immersive videogame environment following a large spider as it travels different landscapes.

In this profound meditation on Black aquatic experiences, Barfod weaves experimental animation with intimate conversations with Black swimmers from Glasgow and London.