Beyond The Substrata

Throughout 2019 artist Larry Achiampong developed new work in response to his residency with Waltham Forest Council. Working within an abandoned supermarket in Leyton, the artist configured a work using the building as a means to explore the social and political issues affecting the wider area in east London including race, class, gender and gentrification.Through referencing the black body within a space that victimises it, in this case, the Western Supermarket, Achiampong uses the Western Supermarket as a double enterndre.Whilst the system of the supermarket is generally assumed to offer consumers a vast array of choice in purchasing goods and services, the choices are rarely substantial and often sourced from a handful of many-faced corporations across clinical environments.An artistic act of counter-surveillance that plays on the all-seeing eyes and repressive structures that have become the norm in consumer culture and retail environments.The politicisation of and violence meted upon the black body is explored in Beyond the Substrata through choreographed movements performed by dancer Kanika Skye-Carr.