Creating Joy is a digital film archive showcasing global Black geographies of joy. It provides a needed space for Black Diasporic filmmakers and artists to unsettle dominant representations of Blackness in visual culture. Each film centres the intimate ways in which Black life is enriched and animated by the ordinary pleasures of being in community.
Film Festival
The Creating Joy project presents its exciting film festival and roundtable. The festival takes place on the Thursday 28 April at 5:30 pm (BST) and will introduce newly commissioned films by six visual artists. They will each showcase their work in this much-anticipated online event. The artists, who hail from different parts of the Black/African Diaspora, including Nigeria, Canada (via Jamaica) and the United Kingdom (via Jamaica and Nigeria), explore the role of joy and community in their different representations of Blackness. The film-screening will be followed by a live Q&A session featuring the artists.
Round Table
Join us on Friday 29 April at 5:30 pm (BST) for the Creating Joy Roundtable discussion. The speakers include renowned Jamaican filmmaker, Dr Esther Figueroa who will give the keynote address. She will be joined by Dr Cedrick Taylor (USA/Jamaica), Dr Tia-Monique Uzor (UK), Nancy Handabile (Zambia) along with the Creating Joy project partner, documentary artist and filmmaker, Chris Ivey (Pittsburgh, USA). Ivey has played a vital role as a mentor to the six filmmakers featured in the festival. The event will be hosted by Dr Lisa Palmer and Agostinho Pinnock.
The artists:
- Immaculata Abba (Nigeria/Ghana) is a freelance photographer, journalist, and researcher exploring the ideas, work, and spaces with which Africans make their living.
- Ugochukwu Emebiriodo (Nigeria) is a curator and photographer from Lagos, Nigeria.
- Jason Kofi-Haye (UK/Jamaica) is an artist based in the UK, whose interests in pursuing an artistic practice first began when studying music production.
- Jaz Morrison (UK/Caribbean) is a writer and multidisciplinary (but mainly visual) artist, exploring history and social space.
- Steph Odu (UK/Nigeria) is an artist and filmmaker whose work draws on themes of Blackness, post-coloniality, and futurity.
- Karimah Zakia Issa (Canada/Jamaica) is an emerging director and passionate storyteller based in London, UK, and Toronto.
The Team
Creating Joy is a partnership between Agostinho Pinnock (Loughborough University), Filmmaker and Documentary Artist, Chris Ivey and Dr Lisa Amanda Palmer from the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre (De Montfort University). The project has been made possible by an Antipode ‘Right to the Discipline’ 2021 grant.
Find out more about Creating Joy here.