We are pleased to announce that Tropikos, John Akomfrah’s stunning RTP film commission, has been acquired by the Arts Council Collection to mark its 70th anniversary.

Described by Mark Brown, in The Guardian (15 January 2016), as “an experimental 16th-century costume drama filmed on the banks of the river Tamar … exploring the relationship
between waterways in south-west England and the slave trade”, Tropikos transforms the landscape along the Tamar Valley into the setting for a sixteenth-century port of exploration on the African continent in order to reveal the deep-rooted and darker history of the river.

Informed by historical accounts of the slave traders based in Plymouth, whilst also referencing classic literature, specifically Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) and Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611), the film is a fictional narrative, re-imagining some of the first “encounters with the other”, as Akomfrah puts it, in a period when Britain’s position as a global, seafaring power coincided with the enforced displacement of millions of African people across the Atlantic. Employing the tactics of Bertolt Brecht’s ‘theatre of alienation’, the artist presents a series of ‘tableaux vivantes’, which feel both archaic and imaginary, yet whose startling juxtapositions disrupt a simple identification with the characters depicted, demanding a conscious consideration of the constructed narrative. African and European locations blur, and characters and goods overlap with each other, as a representation of the faded traces of stories that we are asked to re-think afresh.

John Akomfrah (born 1957, Accra, Ghana) is an artist and filmmaker, based in London, whose works are characterised by their investigations into memory, post-colonialism, temporality and aesthetics, often exploring the experience of the African diaspora in Europe and the USA. Akomfrah was a founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, in 1982, along with the artists David Lawson and Lina Gopaul (amongst others), with whom he still collaborates today, as Smoking Dogs Films.

On the 15th January 2016 the Arts Council Collection announced that Tropikos was one of eight new commissions acquired by the collection in order to celebrate it’s 70th anniversary. The commissions, also including works by Hurvin Anderson, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Ryan Gander, Mark Leckey, Heather Phillipson, Keith Piper and Katie Paterson, will all go on display in 2016 before joining the collection.

Tropikos (2014) – directed by John Akomfrah, and produced by Smoking Dogs Films (Lina Gopaul and David Lawson) – was commissioned by the River Tamar Project, and premiered at Devonport Guildhall in October 2014, as part of the It’s All About the River film festival. The commission was made possible with support from Plymouth University and Arts Council England, with kind contributions from the Elephant Trust and the George Melhuish Bequest and Smoking Dogs.

Artist, musicians, and writers have responded to the context of the River Tamar and have been part of its energy for centuries and, like all places, the resulting artworks become a record of its history. This history is important to the River Tamar Project as we can draw direct parallels to the intentions of our project and why art is important at moments of environmental and cultural shifts.

The results of this relationship between artist and riverscape are artworks that resonate with the area and its socio-economic and cultural history, as well as exploring universal issues.  For instance, the celebrated British landscape JMW Turner who painted countless seascapes and river scenes was drawn to the Tamar Valley several times, notably around 1813-15. The significance of his work captured a period of industrial revolution, which led to a national reputation for Plymouth. Also, for our project now, his work presents the physical change of the coast and riverside, and identifies the infrastructure and design of this period.

Arts Catalyst Exhibition: cultural archetypes and ideas interweave with science and technology to create new shapes, visual forms and structures.

Two new commissions by Melanie Jackson and Revital Cohen exploring how our beliefs and myths interweave with contemporary science and technology to create new forms. John Hansard Gallery, Southampton.

As we develop the tools to manipulate and engineer new forms and systems of life, the exhibition considers our historical and contemporary entanglements with nature, technology and the economy, and how these relationships influence emergent forms in biological and synthetic matter, through new sculpture, installation and moving image works.

Just been listening to Jarvis Cocker’s BBC 6 Radio Sunday Service broadcast from A Room for London, a new perspective on the River Thames. Yet again a great commission by Artangel.

The one-bedroom installation, built by Living Architecture and designed by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with the artist Fiona Banner, will stay on top of the roof throughout 2012.

Check it out – www.aroomforlondon.co.uk

Picture this: You’re walking through a misty Scottish forest, trying to find that perfect viewing platform to get your Iphone out and Instagram a photo that will make your friends cry with envy. The ground is wet and, although beautiful, your vista is blocked by a thick covering of trees. You carry on, sure that you will find the perfect spot. Then, just round that final corner, your patience is rewarded…

River Runs – they certainly do – an amazing artists project.

Just missed this at Modern Art Oxford

URBONAS STUDIO: NOMEDA & GEDIMINAS URBONAS, TRACEY WARR, GIACOMO CASTAGNOLA

This month we welcome Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas for a three-week artist residency in the Project Space. Nomeda and Gediminas are working with writer Tracey Warr and architect Giacomo Castagnola to turn the Project Space into a temporary River Research Centre.

The artists will invite visitors to explore the role that rivers play in defining our sense of individual and collective belonging, how we might imitate water birds, animals, plants and fish to adapt to an environment with rising water levels, and why and how water is important to us.

What is EMSCHERKUNST?

As a triennale until 2020, the international exhibition EMSCHERKUNST in the northern Ruhr area accompanies one of Europe’s largest reclamation projects – the conversion of the open sewage canal Emscher into a natural river. During the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010, the exhibition EMSCHERKUNST.2010 was the biggest art project in public space and fascinated 200.000 national and international visitors.

The next exhibition EMSCHERKUNST.2013 takes place from 22nd June 2013 until 6th October 2013, exhibition area will be the Emscher Island between Gelsenkirch en and Oberhausen as well as the Emscher Delta near Dinslaken/Duisburg where the river flows into the Rhine.