HERE US OUT

What drives you as an artist? Is it the beautiful? The mysterious? Hakeem Adam’s work Here Us Out is driven by this question and looks for the meaning of expression. Although Adam feels betrayed by expression, as it can desert you in times of need, he is also constantly energized by the search for it.

Here us out is a meditative exercise on reconciliatory thought. The audience is invited to listen in on a conversation attempting to form an opinion on the power and purpose contained in creative expression. It emerges from sound and video recordings of artists from Africa and its diaspora discussing aspects of their creative expression in their own voices. The installation constructs and holds space for the intentions, beliefs, vulnerabilities, habits, memories and emotions that drive and propel expression to be heard. The sounds establish a framework for exploring a central theme on creative drive. 

The installation is visually supported by collaged images referencing the dynamic of the conversation as organic forms and giving faces to the voices in conversation.  

Here Us Out was developed for STRP 2023 as the awardee of the Creative Technology (ACT) 2023. 

Project Credits 

Here Us Out samples and interpolates the following sound and video recordings: 

• “won’t you celebrate with me” BY LUCILLE CLIFTON

• “The Place We Call Home” By Kofi Anyidoho

• “Tongues United” by Marlon Riggs

• “Kofi Busia on Freedom and Beauty” by Osi Mizrahi

• “Brenda Fassie - Not a Bad Gir” by Chris Austin

• “Basquiat: An Interview (Art/new york 30A, 1989)” by Paul Tschinkel & Marc H. Miller

Exhibition communications edited by: Tess de Ruiter

Special Thanks to Kwame Boafo

All Images by Boudewijn Bollmann.

References 

• Anyidoho, K. (2011). The Place We Call Home: And Other Poems. Ayebia Clarke Pub Limited.

• Austin, C. (Director). (1993). Brenda Fassie - Not a Bad Girl [Video]. BBC Television. https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/42440891-b2d6-43e3-ad47-07d2b6f86fe1/brenda-fassie-not-a-bad-girl

• Clifton, L. (2013). The Book of Light. Copper Canyon Press.

• Osi Mizrahi. (2013, April 30). Kofi Busia on Freedom and Beauty [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft-5PBXZnsw

• Riggs, M. (Director). (1989). Tongues Untied [Video]. https://www.criterion.com/films/31182-tongues-untied

• Tschinkel, P., & Miller, M. H. (Directors). (1984). Basquiat: An Interview (Art/new york 30A, 1989) [Video]. https://98bowery.com/return-to-the-bowery/art-new-york-jean-michel-basquiat