Reading Group Proximate Currents Reading Group

Join curator Annie Jael Kwan and artistic and curatorial collaboration Languid Hands for a reading group and discussion that addresses how artists respond to the politics of the everyday and how they speak to social injustices. This session is inspired by Ben Yau’s recent work “Proximate Currents: When Everything Fuses Together”.

We will read fragments from “Archive” by Ariella Azoulay, and “Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive” by Achille Mbembe, as well as Languid Hands’ statement and discuss their ideas around abolition more generally, alongside excerpts from their film “Towards A Black Testimony: Prayer/Protest/Peace”.

Biographies

Annie Jael Kwan is an independent curator and researcher based in London and working across Europe and Asia. Her background is in theatre studies, cultural studies and modern and contemporary art history, and her practice is located at the intersection of contemporary art and activism with an interest on issues related to archives, histories, feminist, queer and alternative knowledges, collective practice and solidarity. She is a recipient of a Diverse Actions Leadership Award 2019 and co-leads Asia-Art-Activism, currently in residence at Raven Row till November 2020 and the recipient of the European Cultural Foundation’s Culture of Solidarity grant.

Rabz Lansiquot is a filmmaker, programmer, curator, and DJ. They were a leading member of sorryyoufeeluncomfortable (SYFU) collective from its inception in 2014. Rabz was Curator In Residence at LUX Moving Image in 2019, developing a public and educational programme around Black liberatory cinema. Their first solo exhibition where did we land, an experimental visual essay exploring the use of images of anti-black violence in film and media, was on view at LUX in Summer 2019, presented alongside a programme of screenings and a study day. They have put together film programmes at the ICA, SQIFF, Berwick Film & Media Festival and were a programme advisor for London Film Festival’s Experimenta strand in 2019 and are on the selection committee for Sheffield Doc Fest 2020. Rabz is also training to deliver workshops in working with Super 8 and eco-processing at not.nowhere, and is a board member at City Projects.

Imani Robinson is a London-based writer, curator, live art practitioner, plant lover and prison abolitionist. Recent projects include: Towards a Black Testimony: Prayer/Protest/Peace, a film by Languid Hands, Ditto & Ditto Take a Trip to Port Authority, a moving image work made with Halima Haruna; WELCOME NOTE IN A WELCOME SPEECH, a collaborative performance with artist Libita Clayton (2019); and The Black (D)rift, an ongoing series of workshops and performances exploring black geographies and the psychic afterlives of transatlantic slavery (2015-2018). Imani completed their MA in Forensic Architecture at the Centre for Research Architecture in 2019. They are one half of Languid Hands, who are the current Cubitt Curatorial Fellows 2020-1. Imani’s writing has been published widely, including by Wasafiri magazine, Mousse Publishing, PSS, 1_1 and Arcadia Missa. They are also the editor of Talking Drugs, an online platform dedicated to providing unique news and analysis on drug policy, harm reduction and related issues around the world, and are a facilitator with Abolitionist Futures and blackabolitionist.

Image: Ben Yau, Proximate Currents, video still, 2020.