Junkanoo Talk (excerpt), 2017

Digital and Super 16mm converted to digital with sound, 12min, 2017 (excerpt)

The Adequate Language must be both culturally specific and engage universally.

Junkanoo Talk investigates the language of celebration through carnival. It employs the techniques of costume crafting particular to Junkanoo- a carnival of the Bahamas. The sound is produced on the body and takes the rhythms of Rake 'n' Scrape music, also particular to the Bahamas. James Baldwin is quoted, speaking of the complexities of being an African American living in France, along with the Bahamian Tourism Minister who speaks of appropriation and the body as a voice. 

Colour is coded in a way which suggests an internal logic, the layering on of a costume comparative to the layering on of a language. The film seeks a near forensic way of looking, yet the viewer is systematically denied the full picture. What is concealed or revealed is carefully orchestrated in order to facilitate a questioning of carnival.The body is considered a highly abstracted mediator to confront an identity politics which is inbetween. Authored by an artist of mixed race,  Junkanoo Talk questions the slippages which occur when a language performs across cultures, asking what can be translated and where resistances occur.