Finding Fanon Gaiden: Delete
2016
Artists: Larry Achiamong and David Blandy
Collaborators: Mennesker i Limbo
Medium: Film and archival print
Edition Price: 879 NOK with 35% to Mennesker i Limbo
The joint practice of Larry Achiampong & David Blandy is co-represented by Copperfield & Seventeen. Larry Achiampong is represented by Copperfield & David Blandy is represented by Seventeen. www.larryachiampong.co.uk / www.davidblandy.co.uk
Mennesker i Limbo (People in Limbo) is a group of long-term undocumented people who fight for recognition and to tell how difficult the situation of undocumented people is. They aim to be visible in order to improve the situation of undocumented people in Norway. www.ilimbo.org
A complex tapestry of true stories of identity and migration, cultural history and social change, Finding Fanon Gaiden: Delete was produced during PRAKSIS’s first residency New Technology and the Post-human residency at PRAKSIS. Blandy & Achiampong worked with Mennesker i Limbo (People in Limbo), to tell the important real life stories of three the group’s members. The film subverts the violence, sexism and racism synonymous with the popular computer game Grand Theft Auto V, stripping its in game environment of weapons to create a world that offers real insight into the extreme, but often hidden situations that bring people to find themselves in limbo; without papers or rights, far from home.
Scaled to be the same size as an iPad screen, the print edition Finding Fanon Gaiden Delete: Sara’s Story shows a soberly dressed, lone female traveller walking at sunset along a railway track in a barren, uncanny digital landscape. Who is she and why is she there? What is her destination, and will she make it?
About the Finding Fanon Project
The Finding Fanon project, a collaboration between Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, is inspired by the lost plays of Frantz Fanon, (1925-1961) a radical humanist who dealt with the psychopathology of colonization and the social and cultural consequences of decolonisation. This has evolved from research into a performance, a series of video works and exhibitions. The first film was screened as part of BFI's London Film Festival in 2015 and the Finding Fanon trilogy will be screened at Tate Modern, London on 6 December 2016.
Throughout the series, the artists 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. Investigating cultural adaption and how globalisation masks divisions and encourages a homogenisation of behaviour, the Finding Fanon series becomes a search for authenticity in a radically interconnected yet ambiguous world.
The two artists, while collaborating, acknowledge the history that has shaped their present interactions, as this conflict is played out through scripts that meld found texts and personal testimony. Navigating hidden, traumatic stories that connect their past, present and future, the two artists question the promise of globalisation and new technologies, recognizing its impact on their own heritages.
Please watch full screen
Finding Fanon Gaiden Delete: Sara’s Story
2016, Archival pigment inkjet print on 310gsm Ilford Prestige pearlescent paper, 11.6 x 20.7 cm, signed edition of 75.879NOK
35 percent of profits from the sale of Finding Fanon Gaiden: Delete (Sara's Story) are donated to Mennesker i Limbo to support their ongoing campaign for the rights of paperless migrants.
