The Balcony

Larry Achiampong (1984, GH/UK) and David Blandy (1976/UK) have developed a video-based collaborative practice exploring the politics of race, class and the post-colonial condition. The second chapter of Slow Drift(s) presents a selection from their Finding Fanon Series, a body of work departing from the writings of Martinican philosopher Frantz Fanon (1925-1961). In addition to traditional filmmaking, the artists resort to more unconventional techniques for video-making such as recording characters inside popular free-roaming open world video games. The latter has allowed them to incorporate the participation of different communities -such as veterans and migrants- but also to harness the constructedness of virtual space as a metaphor for societal barriers. Traversing Fanon’s musings with personal experiences, the series demonstrates the contemporary relevance of 20th-century concerns with colonial attitudes and sketches their implications in the context of the information age.