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.
Under this theme we’ve set out to group work that delves into archives for its source material, or performs some kind of archival work in situ, and at the same time we’ve gathered together work that leans in the direction of documentary in all its forms. A couple of highlights in this theme are Arthur Jafa and Kara Keeling’s sharing of film and you tube clips pertaining to queer and black world making and Ashley Hunt’s performed film documentary about Hurricane Katrina.
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 performed filmic conversation on queer and black world making.
Killer of Sheep is an undisputed masterpiece of African-American filmmaking and one of the most poetic, perceptive dramas ever made about family and community.
This event honoured those individuals who achieved the status of Icon during the period of 1986-1990.
A celebration of the release of four books written by members of, and focused on about the House and Ballroom scene.
The queer archiving of traumatic cultural memory from one of the leading voices working with queer archives.
A meditation on how all of us perform — sometimes reinforcing, sometimes subverting — the shifting categories of gender, sexuality and race.
A performed film lecture exploring how the ‘Rumberas’ of Caribbean cinema of the 40’s and 50’s subverted demeaning images of themselves through dance, sound and a sociality that insisted on blackness as being a cultural performance, not simply due to skin colour.
A performance bearing witness to a struggle built upon patience and collective action from the great multi-instrumentalist and member of the AACM.
A bodiless treatise on narration, bored speakers, audience misbehaviour and police megaphones, but: is anybody listening?
Seven women recite monologues composed from texts from the vibrant years of the Weimar Republic. A kind of cultural echo: an experience of histories brought to the present.
A testimony to poverty from Chris’s own experiences, and an invitation to engage with an all too typical situation and context through a kind of imaginary listening.