Here is the Imagination of the Black Radical

Afrofuturism is communicated via the Bahamian people through Junkanoo, a form of carnival in the Bahamas, originally celebrated by the enslaved who were given Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s day off only. The history of Junkanoo is political as much as aesthetic. The film follows the ‘Shell Saxons Superstars’, producing a portrait of not only the parade but examines the way in which the Saxons organise space, questioning the effect of their organisation on the way in which they are culturally represented. ‘Black radical imagination’ itself is a term used by Robin Kelley, predominantly to describe US Black radical organising in the 20th Century. The film instead aims to utilise a geographical location and history that is Caribbean focused.‘Here is the Imagination of the Black Radical’ voices the innovations of Junkanoo within an experimental film history too, one which draws on the aesthetics of 1980’s Black film workshops and which does not adhere to documentary realism but produces counter narratives. A 16mm cyanotype blue wash is the signal of Black imaginative life. Its mission is to communicate an incommunicability. Knowledge that is enacted or performed to which film cannot do justice.