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The Ghosts of Songs | A Retrospective of the Black Audio Film Collective

Group show at Arnolfini, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts), FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology) . 2007
Date: 2 February, 2007 until 1 April, 2007
Curator: Kodwo Eshun & Anjalika Sagar (Otolith Group)
Organiser: FACT/Arnolfini/inIVA

Major retrospective touring exhibition - included a designed viewing environment by David Adjade. Featured the work of the Black Audio Film Collective that comprises of the artists: John Akomfrah; Reece Auguiste; Edward George; Lina Gopaul; Avril Johnson; David Lawson; David Mathison.

The exhibition toured to 3 venues: Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT) Liverpool, 2 February - 1 April, 2007; Arnolfini, Bristol, 27 April - 22 June, 2007; Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) London, UK at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 28 May - 3 August, 2008.

Handsworth Songs was included in the major Migrations: Journeys into British Art exhibition at Tate Britain, in 2012. The catalogue included more than three pages of edited text of an interview with Akomfrah by Lizzie Carey-Thomas and Paul Goodwin, two of the curators of the exhibition. Within the text, Akomfrah discussed the history and development of his practice and that of the Black Audio Film Collective. The text had fascinating insights into the development of Black visual art practice in Britain, from the early 1980s onwards. The Akomfrah text was followed by several pages of an interview with Kodwo Eshun, in which he discusses, amongst other things, the significance of Handsworth Songs and the Black Audio Film Collective. (It was Eshun, as part of the Otolith Group, who was co-curator of the Black Audio Film Collective retrospective, The Ghosts of Songs).