Okay Keskidee, Let Me See Inside! (Trailer)

16mm converted to Digital, 20 min, 2025

A personal account of Black community spaces in the UK, focusing on Caribbean diaspora. By visiting the site of the former Keskidee Centre that is now luxury apartments, the film considers the conditions which allowed this historical space to thrive. ‘Okay Keskidee’ explores the reasons why gathering in physical space is difficult because of the premium cost of space and the often free labour or government funding needed, both of which are scarce. We see the architecture of surrounding developments driven by rampant capitalism. Can the digital realm replace a physical community presence and produce an accessible archive for a new generation?

‘Okay Keskidee, Let Me See Inside’, is part of a larger body of work into Caribbean diaspora lives in the UK. I feel it is important to show that histories of arts organising go hand in hand with political discourse. My approach to the work is underpinned by PhD research into Black artists using analogue film. My interest in using 16mm is in the value of the medium when the Keskidee Centre was operational in the 70’s and 80’s, and I have focused on making new images which take the form of the dominant newsreel medium at the time, 16mm film. The central proposition of the film is that a surface could stand in for the inadequate recording of Black histories. The labour of making the film is also important, (as is the labour of these Caribbean artistic practices discussed in the film). By using optical printing and rostrum cameras at two film labs in the UK, I am interested in slow ways of thinking around contemporary subjects and the personal connections formed by using machines which are now usurped by faster and more convenient digital practices.