Larry Achiampong
PAN AFRICAN FLAG FOR THE RELIC TRAVELLERS’ ALLIANCE (MOTION)
5 September - 20 October 2019 | Domino Houses Billboard, Bounds Green Road, N22 8YB
Larry Achiampong’s billboard poster artwork, ‘PAN AFRICAN FLAG FOR THE RELIC TRAVELLERS’ ALLIANCE (MOTION)’, highlights African diasporic identity. The design of this work features 54 stars that represent the 54 countries of Africa. The colours green, black and red reflect its land, its people and the struggles the continent has endured, respectively. The field of yellow gold stands for a new day and prosperity. Larry has configured these Pan African colours into symbols and forms that are suggestive of various elements, in this instance, motion and the speed of darkness. Belonging to a series of flags, they culminate as Afrofuturistic icons moving towards unity and equilibrium.
Like those who will see it, the MOTION Flag from Larry’s ‘PAN AFRICAN FLAG FOR THE RELIC TRAVELLERS' ALLIANCE’ series moves at pace towards the potentials of various possible futures. Most of the artworks within the series are placed for the viewer so that they might have time to engage with and meditate upon the piece, but those who will see the icon embedded in the Bounds Green area might only have a few seconds to witness the work before the it becomes part of their past. While static on the billboard, MOTION continues forward as part of the psyches of those who have taken it in – no matter how fleetingly, while the sigil is subsumed by the city and the patchwork of iconic logos that for generations have merged empire, culture and corporation.
This work builds on Larry’s concept of sanko-time, a theory at the core of the artist’s recent practice. Based in the Ashanti word “sanfoka” – roughly translated as to go back for what has been left behind. Sankofa also alludes to using the past to prepare for the future; essentially, the wish of being able to go back to an immutable point to make sure that what has been lost is not lost no longer. Although a new term, it reflects resilience from the oldest traumas of the African diasporas.
The billboard artwork is accompanied by a digital commission for online project space SKELF, exhibited on www.skelf.org.uk/ between 17 July – 22 October 2019.
RELIC TRAVELLER: Film Screenings
Monday 14th October 2019, 6-9pm
Domino Houses Billboard, Bounds Green Road, N228YB
An evening of screenings of films from within the Relic Traveller series by artist Larry Achiampong.
Larry Achiampong (b. 1984, UK) is a Jarman Award nominated artist (2018). He completed a BA in Mixed Media Fine Art at University of Westminster in 2005 and an MA in Sculpture at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2008. He lives and works in London, and has been a tutor on the Photography MA programme at Royal College of Art since 2016. Achiampong currently serves on the Board of Trustees at Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) and is represented by C Ø P P E R FI E L D. | larryachiampong.co.uk
