Creative Lives talk guest speaker Larry Achiampong.
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Throughout this semester the creative lives talks have been a great addition added along side my individual practices and research. I have loved hearing the different artist talk about their own career experience discussing their work, practices, background and motivations. They have really opened my mind to many possibilities in which the creatives arts can offer me strengthening my love for art even more. The talk in which I will be reflecting on is the last talk which was hosted by guest speaker Larry Achiampong. This talk was very interesting to listen to I was captivated from the minute he started talking until he stope. I loved learning about his work and life story how he grew and learned from his experiences and surround and incorporating them into his art work is marvels. Within the talk he talks about his work studio in Essex and about the fact that it displays many of his treasured piece that portray his personal background of coming from a poverty up bringing. Larry Achiampong, is a British Ghanaian artist whose work includes moving image; sculptural installation; photographic and painted collage; audio and visual archives; live performance; spoken word; recorded sound bytes and composed scores. Recurring themes within these works often explore postcolonial themes and the idea of a post-human existence. Larry Achiampong's work examine his communal and personal heritage – in particular, the intersection between Popular culture and the post-colonial position, Achiampong crate-digs the vaults of history. These investigations examine constructions of ‘the self’ by splicing the audible and visual materials of personal and interpersonal archives, offering multiple perspectives that reveal the deeply entrenched inequalities in contemporary society. During the talk he discusses how he is interested in different approaches to express him self which explains his impressive range of artistic skills and talents, for example he talked about how when producing his own sounds and music he would incorporate and take inspiration from that of noise occurring around him something as simple as train going past on a track. Along with talking about his inspirations he also discussed some of his work. One being called 'integer', this is one of a group of photographs in Tate’s collection by Larry Achiampong. Spanning a number of years, they form part of an ambitious and ongoing photographic project that seeks to examine how homogenising racist stereotypes obfuscate and dehumanise the identities of Black people. The digitally manipulated photographs are derived from family photograph albums, showing individuals and family groups. In each case, the heads of the figures have been replaced with identical black circles bearing no features other than a pair of bright red lips. The original source photographs were all drawn from Achiampong’s own family archive, passed to him by his mother. In fact, most were taken by his mother and he considers her as an integral part of a collaborative conversation. I loved learn a little about this piece and it has encouraged me to research more into it along with his other art piece, the reason I loved learning about this piece is because of the sentimental value it holds towards him his family and who they are. He touches upon a topic close to his heart in which he strongly feels passionate about that topic being racism, Achiampong seeks to replicate the hurt that homogenising racist stereotypes. His strong passion has inspired me to not be affair to also speak about issues that aren't necessarily talked about on a daily basis and to also create from experience. Its ok to show the world your opinion. Whilst also talking about his other achievements I overall feel that this talk has unlocked my mind to a newer sense of art, I feel encouraged to step out side my comfort zone and try new mediums just like the rage Achiampong explores as many beautiful production can be created from trying new techniques. Achiampong him self is impress as he uses his work to bring light to important subjects that many would rather turn away from than have a view on.