The Impasse of Blackness: Interrogating the Possibility of Resolution
(Curated film program with The Block Museum of Art)
Bringing together feature-length and short films from the 1980s to the present, this program questions the possibility of resolution as it relates to the violence of anti-Blackness. Through their work, filmmakers Ngozi Onwurah, Ebun Sodipo, and the collective Languid Hands (Imani Robinson and Rabz Lansiquot) reckon with the afterlives of Trans-Atlantic slavery and colonialism, both in the U.K. and its “former” colonies. Drawing from a range of archival materials and narrative footage, the films interrogate the empty promises of progress, recognizing the constant onslaught of violence that impacts Black life. When the resolution of anti-Blackness is no longer viewed as a feasible outcome, ingrained in the structures of imperialist-capitalism, what otherwise possibilities does Black life turn to?