Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
Disused railway turning circle at east end of Union Terrace Gardens, a historically public space at the centre of a regeneration land-grab for the private gain of a local petro-chemical magnate.
In many ways, this Episode is our attempt to engage with Fred’s incredible writing: with his proposal that all black performance (culture, politics, sexuality, identity, and blackness itself) is improvisation.
This programme takes human subjects as the focus for sound and image construction. And it includes a couple of masterpieces of experimental film: Paul Sharits’ deeply empathetic interpretation of epilepsy and Peter Kubelka’s Webern inspired abstract portrait of Arnulf Rainer.
A landmark film on black life – a poetic filmic constellation of meditations, fragments and interviews on what it means to be black in America in the 21st century, from one of its great cinematographers.
A performance by Storyboard P – one of the greatest Afrofuturist dancers on the planet.
Three speakers play back pre-recorded sounds, Marc listens and responds: “What is played is the imperfect witness of what I listen to (or maybe better, how I listen).”
A discussion about what is at stake in the performance of realness and the practice of passing, and how they are both acts of survival and resistance.
From really simple, open instructions, An Unrhymed Chord creates a kind of half-way point between composition and improvisation.
“I am truly without faith. In a media marketplace that demands soulness, I can only offer soulnessless.”
Underground movement legend boychild hosts this workshop—on improvisation, cosmetics, movement and lip-sync.
Dead Labour Process drool-tape farmer, squeaking/creaking Usurper brother and Peeesseye’s yodelling traps-man hold a real OUT splutter party.
A rare live performance which, although not a full installation, made use of the unique acoustic and spatial properties of the Arches to rattle the audience and help it locate its third ear.
