Episode 4: Freedom is a Constant Struggle
Do art forms like black radical poetry, free jazz and improvisation create a space for the performance of freedom? Did they ever? And can they still do so now?
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.
Do art forms like black radical poetry, free jazz and improvisation create a space for the performance of freedom? Did they ever? And can they still do so now?
What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the voguing ball scene going on in Harlem had travelled downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church?
Are artists powerless in the face of technology? These often whimsical and amusing films are minimal technological interventions and appropriations but maybe also rigorous takes on the role of popular media and culture in our hyper-technological world.
A workshop inviting participants to enact a series of scores that explore witnessing, testimony, grief and mourning, facilitated by Mezna and Sadia, and accompanied by Sakina Ali.
Jarringly beautiful and often maniacal expression of hallucinatory and very personal visions.
Investigate film as language, via the language of film reduced to the basic units of film and language. A film as text in which each frame is a single word.
Sachiko’s very simple, pure sine tones and structures. Otomo on double pianos. Filament’s music isn’t composed and it isn’t improvised: it’s a hybrid of the two.
A recently reanimated Ascension, with mighty Leeds drum hero Paul Hession bringing a dense polyrhythmic torrent into play with Jaworzyn’s reinvigorated piercing guitar.
Usurper jamming live in a skip at the site of Bud’s Neill’s Lobey Dosser statue on Woodlands Road.
A 100 strong Feral Choir of people who’ve never improvised with their voices before, conducted by composer Phil Minton.
Paul Sharits is one of our all time heroes, and one of the great artist filmmakers of the 20th Century.
Wave Formations is a 5 screen work in which each screen runs through a series of fades and then stroboscopic flashes of colour, to create a series of visual harmonics.