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Films In Dialogue: Martina Attille and Rabz Lansiquot

10 February, 2019
– 10 February, 2019
2pm-4pm
LUX
Waterlow Park Centre
Roderick Hart, Nimmy March, Angela Wynter in Dreaming Rivers (1988), by Martina Attille | Sankofa Film & Video. Photo Credit: Christine Parry

LUX is delighted to present new instalment in our on-going series Films in Dialogue which invites artists to present their work and discuss mutual interests and influences.

“I first met Rabz Lansiquot at a public screening entitled New Work: Onyeka Igwe No Dance, No Palaver, at LUX on 5 July 2018.  I was keen to hear Igwe speak about her work having been introduced to her by Professor William Raban at UAL LCC. Lansiquot and Imani Robinson of sorryyoufeeluncomfortable, engaged Igwe in a post-screening discussion that hard wired in me a type of deferential posture towards the varying modes of expression of a new generation of UK cultural producers.

The appearance of this changing posture began to inscribe itself in my person, while reading a review of my film Dreaming Rivers (1988), written by artist and writer Abondance Matanda for INIVA, on The Place Is Here, a group survey curated by Nick Aikens and Sam Thorne, with Nicola Guy, at Nottingham Contemporary in 2017. Matanda wrote of Dreaming Rivers: ‘It is about an old Windrush-era woman called Miss T, who laments about how England is so cold and makes her so tired, like our mothers and grandmothers do’
An ‘old Windrush-era woman’, ‘grandmothers’. The historical and the familial conflated so perfectly in Matanda’s writing is in alignment with the allegorical framing of the Dreaming Rivers narrative about nation and belonging.  The impact of Matanda’s words signalled both artistically and institutionally a cultural shift in reading and writing about Dreaming Rivers and the film’s legacy. Since reading Matanda’s words, I’ve been thinking through strategies with which to address the continued public and academic relevance of my work, thirty-one years on from its release. Thanks to a fortuitous encounter with Hama-Lansiquot after the close of the Igwe event, I discovered that while studying, she had made a short film, Nyansapo (2017) which was inspired in part by Dreaming Rivers.” Martina Attille
In a unique and unrepeatable presentation hosted by LUX, Dreaming Rivers and Nyansapo will be screened together for the first time, offering the filmmakers an opportunity to reflect on their shared and individual practices.
Dreaming Rivers Martina Attille (1988)
‘In director Martina Attille’s own words Dreaming Rivers ‘illustrates the spirit of modern families touched by the experience of migration.’ Awarded a prestigious Filmdukaten at the XXXVII Internationale Filmwoche Mannheim (1988), the film evocatively weaves together the ambition-fuelled dreams and memories of Caribbean-born Miss T. and her family.’ Tate Britain
Nyansapo Rabz Lansiquot (2017)
‘While teaching me how to cook Jollof Rice, my grandmother tells me of her experience back home in Ghana as it became the first African country to gain independence from colonial rule, and her life in the UK since moving to London in the 1960’s. Nyansapo is the Adinkra symbol represented by the “wisdom knot”, a symbol of wisdom, ingenuity, intelligence and patience’ Rabz Lansiquot
Martina Attille is currently an AHRC TECHNE PhD Candidate at UAL LCC, registered in her preferred name, Judah.
Rabz Lansiquot is a filmmaker, curator, and DJ. She is a leading member of sorryyoufeeluncomfortable (SYFU) collective, a London-based collective that creates intentional spaces for deep study, conversation and multi-disciplinary art-making that relates to race and liberatory politics. With SYFU she has produced public programming in a number of contexts including curated screenings, collective readings, performances, workshops and discussions, and co-curated the exhibitions (BUT) WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACY? and the BBZBLKBK: Alternative Graduate Show for Black queer & trans artists. Her audio-visual work and film theory writing is informed by Black liberatory thought, Black queer studies, and lived experience, seeking to move beyond representation, to liberation in the realm of the moving image.

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