''The Unfinished Conversation'' is a 2012 multi-layered three-screen installation directed by John Akomfrah, co-founder of the

Black Audio Film Collective The Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC), founded in 1982 and active until 1998, comprised seven Black British and diaspora multimedia artists and film makers: John Akomfrah, Lina Gopaul, Avril Johnson, Reece Auguiste, Trevor Mathison, Edward Geo ...

. Through his celebrated technique of juxtaposing and layering archive footage with text, music and photographs, Akomfrah crosses the memory landscape of Stuart Hall,

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

n-born founder of

British Cultural Studies British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

, to reflect on the nature and complexities of memory and identity. ''The Unfinished Conversation'' was commissioned by

Autograph ABP Autograph ABP, previously known as the Association of Black Photographers, is a British-based international, non-profit-making, photographic arts agency. History Autograph was originally established in London in 1988. Founders included the photog ...

. It opened at

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, on 26 October 2013, following its premiere at Bluecoat during the 2012

Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Every two years, the city of Liverpool hosts an extensive range of artworks, projects, and a programme of events. The biennial commissions leading ...

Summary

''The Unfinished Conversation'' is a journey through theorist Stuart Hall's work and output on radio and television as a post-war immigrant who arrived in England in the first quarter of the 1950s and pioneered in British cultural studies, as the co-founder of the movement together with E. P. Thompson and

Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...

of the journal ''

New Left Review The ''New Left Review'' is a British bimonthly journal covering world politics, economy, and culture, which was established in 1960. History Background As part of the British "New Left" a number of new journals emerged to carry commentary on m ...

''. Director John Akomfrah, alongside his fellow

members, was engaged with Hall's academic project since the 1970s due to his appearance in the BBC programme ''It Ain’t Half Racist, Mum''. Consequently, ''The Unfinished Conversation'' is a personal project for the director reflecting on his own passage and research on archive-based work related to the notion of black identity.

The commission

Akomfrah's project ''The Unfinished Conversation'' started as an application to the Arts Council initiated by

Mark Sealy Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fi ...

, Director of Autograph ABP and executive producer of the project, based on the premise of commissioning a collaboration between Akomfrah and academic Stuart Hall about the notion of visual and black identity. However, the extensive availability of archive material featuring Hall on radio, cinema and television suggested a parallel project, the making of Akomfrah's documentary '' The Stuart Hall Project''. In an interview with writer-curator Georgia Korossi, Akomfrah explains: "I started to play around with the idea of seeing The Unfinished Conversation as our take on Hall's legacy and implications, and The Stuart Hall Project being pretty much his take on us, and the outside world." The project was made possible by Autograph ABP's commission, with the aim to bring visibility to photographic histories and practices that have often been overlooked.

The project

The acclaimed three-screen installation, ''The Unfinished Conversation'', was developed through the study and selection from 800 hours of Stuart Hall's own archive material of audio interviews and television recordings. With reference to identity, race and memory, ''The Unfinished Conversation'' re-imagines the nature of memory itself through an individual's personal archive, marked with the music of

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

, one of Hall's much loved musicians, as Hall's remarkable archive triggers the world events that were unfolding. Akomfrah's multi-layered installation celebrates Hall's groundbreaking work on culture and identity that is still relevant today. It also examines the questionable nature of the visual that reflects on Hall's work in media studies; with reference to Hall's own position in the world, growing up in Jamaica as part of the Caribbean diaspora, it tackles his central idea that identity, ethnic, cultural or sexual, is fluid and open to recreation.

References

External links

''BP Spotlight: John Akomfrah, The Unfinished Conversation''
at the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

website. {{DEFAULTSORT:Unfinished Conversation Films directed by John Akomfrah 2012 films 2010s English-language films