Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, A lament for power, Installation view at Art Exchange, University of Essex, 2020
Larry Achiampong & David Blandy,
The Grid, Installation view at Copperfield, London, 2019. Photo: Eva Herzog
Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, Finding Fanon Part 1, 2015, 4K UHD Single Channel Video Colour, Stereo Sound. Photo: Claire Barrett.
Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, A Terrible Fiction, 2019, 4K UHD colour video with sound, 11'51''
Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, A Terrible Fiction, 2019, 4K UHD colour video with sound, 11'51''
Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, FF Gaiden: Alternative, 2016, 4K UHD Single Channel Video Colour With Stereo Sound, 11'03''
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In Larry Achiampong (b. 1984) & David Blandy's (b. 1976) collaborative practice, they share an interest in popular culture and the post-colonial position. They examine communal and personal heritage, using performance to investigate the self as a fiction, devising alter-egos to point at their divided selves.
Their main body of work, The Finding Fanon Series, 2015-2018, is inspired by the lost plays of Frantz Fanon, (1925-1961). Throughout the series, Achiampong & Blandy negotiate Fanon’s ideas, examining the politics of race, racism and decolonisation, and how these societal issues affect our relationship amidst an age of new technology, popular culture and globalisation. Other projects include The Wall and The Incongruous, 2018, commissioned for Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, a film that combines footage of Hadrian’s Wall with computer gaming visuals to generate a new immersive installation that tells a fantastical tale of a land that isolated itself into near extinction; Genetic Automata, which was presented at Arts Catalyst, Centre for Art, Science + Technology in London. Referencing the history of the theory of evolution, and the relationship between Charles Darwin and his taxidermy teacher John Edmonstone, a freed slave. Achiampong & Blandy’s work has been shown both within the UK and abroad. They have recently been commissioned a Public Art Commission by UCL East Marshgate, London to be completed in 2023. They have had solo exhibitions at Focal Point Gallery; The Big Screen, Southend-on-Sea; Wysing Arts, Cambridgeshire; Art Exchange, Colchester; Arts Catalyst, London; Bury Art Museum, Moving Image Gallery, Bury; National Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, The Bahamas; Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth; Tate Modern, London; Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, Texas, USA; Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago, USA; Praksis, Oslo, Norway; Iniva & 198 Gallery, London, Copperfield, London; and Seventeen, London. Their group exhibitions include Worldbuilding, Gaming and Art in the Digital Age, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Julia Stockhen Collection, Dusseldorf (traveling to Centre Pompidou Metz, 2023), Divination from a Night Sky Partly Covered by Clouds, GHMP Prague City Gallery, Prague, Future Ages Will Wonder FACT, Liverpool (21-22); One song is very much like another, and the boat is always from afar, curated by Nikita Yingqian Cai Times Museum, Guangzhou, China; Black Spatial Imaginaries, Glasgow Short Film Festival (2021); Untitled: Art on the conditions of our time, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2021); Stay Home: Art in Uncertain Times, Arts Council Collection online (2020); Milan Machinima Festival 2020, Milan (2020); In Pursuit of Images, AA Gallery, London (2020); Go On Being So, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Penzance (2020); Digital Cultures Festival 2020, Warsaw, Poland (2020); Digital Imaginaries, ZKM: Center for Art & Media Karlsruhe, Germany (2019); Film London Jarman Award, Whitechapel Gallery, London and touring to venues in the UK (2018); Throwing Gestures, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2018); Africa in Motion Film Festival, Scotland (2018);Nature as Data, Jing’an Sculpture Park, JingAnSi, Shangai, China (2018); Transmediale Festival, Berlin, Germany (2018); Revolt & Revolutions, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2018); Finding Fanon Trilogy, Screening, Nottingham Contemporary (2018); States of Play: Roleplay Reality, FACT, Liverpool (2018); Idea of North, BALTIC, Tyneside (2018); A Utopian Stage, curated by Archaeology of the Final Decade, Dhakaa Art Summit, Bangladesh (2018); Unmaking the Mask, BAMcinematek, Brooklyn, USA (2017); Afro-tech Screening, Hartware MedienKunstverein, Dortmund, Germany (2017); Artist Film Weekender, Home, Manchester (2017); Screen City Biennial, online screening, Norway (2017); Trauma & Revival, Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, Poland (2017); L’Autre… De l’image à la réalité, Maison Populaire Contemporary Art Centre, Paris, France (2017); Wilderness Way, Mima, Middlesbrough(2017);Posthuman ComplexitiesFilm Program, mumok, Vienna(2017); Untitled: Art on the conditions of our time, New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2017);Screening: Finding Fanon Part 1 & 2, Live Art Festival, Cape Town, South Africa (2017); Black Film British Cinema Conference, ICA, London (2017);Film Cologne, Art Cologne 2017, Germany (2017); Still (The) Barbarians, Eva International 2016: Ireland’s Biennial, Limerick, Ireland (2016); Cycle Music & Arts Festival, Kopavogur, Iceland (2016); Wysing Poly, Residency, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire (2016); Experimental Motion, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery (2016); Histories of a Vanishing Present: A Prologue, The Mistake Room, Los Angles, USA (2016); Game Video / Art. A Survey, part of the "XXI Triennale International Exhibition. 21st Century. Design after Design", Milan, Italy (2016); The 59th BFI London Film Festival, BFI Southbank, London (2015);Ghosts, Hangar, Lisbon, Portugal (2015); The Vanishing Point of History: L’Été photographique de Lectoure, Centre d'art et photographie de Lectoure, France (2015); Open Souce Contemporary Arts Festival, London (2015); Wir Sind Alle Berliner:1884-2014, ICI, Berlin (2015); Alternative 23, IMT Gallery, London (2015); Collections of Collections, V&A Friday Late, London (2014);3rd Bienale of Bahia, Modern Art Museum of Bahia, Brazil (2014);Digital Africa, as part of 'Africa Utopias', Southbank Centre, London (2014); Biters: Larry Achiampong & David Blandy as part of Test Run, Modern Art Oxford (2014); After/Hours/Drop/Box **LIVE**, Spike Island, Bristol (2014). They have been on residencies at Praksis, Oslo in Norway & Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire. Recent awards include an Elephant Trust award and support from Arts Council England. They have been shortlisted for the Film London Jarman award 2018. For their most recent solo exhibition with the gallery please click here |