Black Audio Film Collective

Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC) present poetic meditations on Britain’s colonial past, public and private memory, as well as struggles of race and class

BAFC were a group of Black British and diaspora artists who engaged with African Caribbean and Asian popular and political culture in Britain. Its members were John Akomfrah, Reece Auguiste, Edward George, Lina Gopaul, Avril Johnson, Clare Joseph (replaced by David Lawson in 1985) and Trevor Mathison. They formed in 1981, after racial discrimination and police brutality against young Black people had led to violent clashes and uprisings around the UK.

BAFC’s films explore Black British and diasporic experience in a manner which is both critically urgent and deeply poetic. They question how notions of race are constructed in society. Three works are on display in the Starr Cinema: Handsworth Songs offers a complex visual and sonic representation of the hopes and dreams of post-war Black British people after the Birmingham uprisings of September 1985. Expeditions One and Expeditions Two are slideshows of 35mm still photographs documenting British imperialism. They are accompanied by a soundtrack of repetitive music and political speeches commenting on the historical conditions of race and class that informs diasporic life in Britain today.