Chorus in Rememory of Flight
Julianknxx
Barbican Centre, London / 14 Sep 2023 – 11 Feb 2024
The Barbican and WePresent by WeTransfer, in partnership with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, present a solo exhibition by Sierra Leonean multidisciplinary artist Julianknxx (Freetown, 1987) at The Curve in London, following a commission from the artist. In 2025, the exhibition will travel to CAM, where it will be presented in the engawa space of the new building.
Addressing themes such as colonial heritage, loss and belonging, Julianknxx works at the boundaries between the written word, music and visual art. Drawing on his own history, the artist seeks to deconstruct preconceptions about African art, history and culture, working on the black experience of building and rebuilding identities, rejecting labels and creating new collective narratives.
The exhibition is a multi-channel video installation entitled Chorus in Rememory of Flight, which was born from a project that took the artist to seven European port cities with strong links to colonial history: Lisbon, Antwerp, Barcelona, Hamburg, Liverpool, Marseilles and Rotterdam. For a year, Julianknxx collaborated with local choirs, politicians, dancers and activists, gathering performances and testimonies that gave rise to the films now shown at The Curve.
In 2023, Julianknxx was an artist in residence in Lisbon, where he worked with the Gospel Collective choir and musicians Edvania Moreno and Kenny Caetano. A performance which emerged from these work sessions was presented at the Gulbenkian Foundation’s open-air amphitheatre in May this year.
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