Money, Space and Cinema, third screening.

The audience for this event included some who had attended in the first two sessions, and a few who had not. The audience included 6 men and 7 women, in addition to the organisers. Dara Waldron, a lecturer in Contextual Studies and the author of many articles and a book on film was a guest speaker for the dialogue. Largely made up of artists and designers, with two academics and one educator.

The dialogue was divided into three sections; the screening, and a conversation circle which began with a conversation between myself, Rod and Dara, followed by a less formal discussion in Tom Collins Public House.

The screening featured Concerning Violence, (Olsson, 2014), an extraordinary work composed of material from 1960’s/70’s/80’s/90’s archival footage from Swedish television focused on conditions in a number of African countries under colonial rule. This was contrasted with a voice-over featuring Lauryn Hill reading from the chapter ‘Concerning Violence’ in Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth (1961).

For the dialogue we relocated to the rehearsal room, a much smaller, warmer space, more conducive to conversation. Dara had recently written on the use of the film archive in the work of John Akomfrah and we discussed a number of matter arising from that essay which were of relevance to the film we had watched.

The violence of particular episodes in the film was discussed in relation to the larger background violence of colonialism, arising from the logic of extractive capitalism, which Fanon touched on in his book and which was referred to directly in the film. Spivak’s reference to the exclusion of women following revolutions was touched on and debated at the end. The silencing of women was alluded to by one of the audience members.

With a much smaller group these discussions continued in the pub afterwards, interwoven with other matters, including view on the subsequent film. There was a feeling that it made more sense to stick with the documentary format rather than switch to a Hollywood film.