In Conversation: Akinola Davies Jr.
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In Conversation: Akinola Davies Jr
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Arts & Culture
Words By: Luc Hinson
Photography: Akinola Davies Jr
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Akinola Davies Jr is a moving image director currently based out of London. His work spans nations, continents and speaks to a broader, global audience, one not obsessed by borders and nationhood. In this interview with Akin we reflected on 2018 - a key focus was his solo exhibition in the US that explored the reclamation of historical artefacts named Heroes of Displacement. In this gaze back at 2018, we explored the subject matter of and themes presented within Heroes of Displacement, Akin’s experiences of growing up in Nigeria and the UK, and the problem of diversity in the arts. Read the interview in full below and you can check out more of Akin’s work by following the link below:
BB: You’ve been busy of late... give us a brief rundown of your last 6 months.
AD: So the last 6 months, I did the Blood Orange video in early June, went to America and shot a thing for Vogue for Afropunk, went to Ghana to show something at Chale Wote arts festival, I contributed to a Guardian film, and then shot heroes of displacement and went and exhibited that in Washington. I’ve also shot a bunch of smaller things - I did the Serpentine with Telfar and Faka, went to Nigeria to shoot a documentary for Dazed, shot a couple of Larry B videos, just shot something for James Massiah, and I’m prepping for an art show in Switzerland in 2 weeks.
BB: So, pretty busy then I guess...
AD: It doesn’t feel that busy, I guess work is pretty transient - I can go a month or two without anything then it all comes in a flurry, got to try and keep up with it all. Then once you finish you realise: I’m just as broke as I was when I started.
BB: Whether you’re working on a creative or commercial project what are you trying to capture through the lens?
AD: I’m always hesitant to say I do commercial projects even though I know I do music videos. For me, they are more collaborative. I'm often working with my friends, rather than me just being told and paid to do something, like here’s the idea this is what we want, go do it.
I’m still in my infancy as a filmmaker as I’ve only been doing it for 2 years. I would say the heart of it is I don’t create any new images of people from the diaspora, as I don’t think any ideas are new - it’s just my interpretation of pre-existing ideas. In my work I’m also not interested in showcasing trauma, I’m not interested in re-emphasising stereotypes, if anything I want to try and do the opposite of that. I’m interested in communities - whether I’m staging it or shooting a real one, I’m want to show people's humanity and that there’s a broader range of people within diaspora communities rather than one monolithic view within these communities.
BB: Is your own identity consciously reflected in your work? Are the two tied together?
AD: I think they are tied together because of the manner in which my "career" started. Because I self-funded a lot of things to begin with, the only thing I was interested in was documenting my community. When you self-fund stuff and you point a camera at your close friends and your community, that’s an extension of your identity. There's this Larry B video coming out in early December and when I watch it I just say: "wow this is me, this is us". Some people might watch it and say this Is some real over the top pageantry shit, but this is just what I do on the weekends.
I’m more conscious now that not everything I make has to be about my identity. I don’t like the idea of that sort of work being the only work I make, because then you get pigeonholed. Although, Left to me 9/10 times that probably would be the stuff I was making. I feel like there is a gaping hole for my community, so first and foremost I want to address that through my films. Equally, my personality is quite sensitive I’m quite opinionated. I try and think of including people who I think maybe aren’t included enough in the stuff I do. It doesn’t necessarily make it sexy or seductive but I’ll stand by anything I make because at least I know what I was trying to do.
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"When you self-fund stuff and you point a camera at your close friends, your community, that’s an extension of your identity."
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Pictured: Blood Orange - Charcoal Baby
Photogapher: Crack Stevens
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Pictured: Blood Orange - Charcoal Baby
Photography: Crack Stevens
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BB: How important are the ideas of tradition and self determination to your work, and will they be central to your work moving forwards?
AD: I’m only interested in it to position it as not being inhibitive. I’m not interested in tradition in the way it is taught and nurtured, I’m interested in it because there’s a lot within it that can’t be explained. I try and use tradition subversively. I’m more interested in decolonisation if anything, and people not accepting what they’ve been told of themselves, then challenging that as much as possible. In terms of my own personal politics, those things will keep occurring because those are things that pragmatically looking at them that POC haven’t had a lot of access to. I want to try and explore them through conversation and travel and putting that on camera - to reintroduce a lot of things that have pre-existed before.
BB: it seems like when you mentioned stereotypes in the first few minutes, it’s like looking at tradition through that same lens, taking a solid concept and flipping it, asking why it exists, what does it represent and what doesn’t it represent..
BB: I understand you grew up in both Nigeria, and the UK, how did the two impact your growth differently?
AD: I think growing up in Nigeria, even though maybe I didn’t enjoy it as much at the time, was really formative. It taught me a lot of human truths about where I’m from. There’s a big emphasis on respect, community and family. There's also a really big emphasis on being industrious with your time, your imagination how you spend money all that kind of stuff.
Then there was the contrast of going to school in the British countryside. For large periods I didn’t feel othered, I was like maybe one of four POC in the school, but it was cool. I’m middle class Nigerian so it was interesting to see what middle class English people lived like in the countryside. There was more of a sense of independence in school. I mean school in England in those years piled on a lot of insecurities, not like I was insecure the whole time but you never really see yourself reflected in the things you learn, or popular culture. Everyone’s favourite show was Blind date, and you'd only get the odd black person on there.
But the best thing that happened to me was studying politics for a year, which blew a big bomb sized hole in my mind. It was good, it made me really depressed, but It was great. I’ve always been interested in politics, and learning about the structure of it made me realise how rigged everything is in favour of white supremacy. At the time, I didn’t know it was that, but It definitely opened my eyes to that sort of stuff. In England, the sense of community is very different. In Nigeria, everyone looks like you - if you’ve not got your family you’ve got church. If it’s not church, you’ve got your extended family or your neighbours. Here in London, it was just like me and my uncle. I wouldn’t know anyone.
BB: How did you get involved with the Nigerian Lives Matter movement?
AD: Alongside my previous job working for Tim & Barry, I was working another job to earn a bit of extra cash. I was working for a French company when the whole Charlie Hebdo attack happened. It was on this day when I saw all these dictators going to Europe to hold hands in solidarity with other European leaders, and it just seemed like such a contradiction. People were dying in their own countries, but there, no one comes to show solidarity, no one comes to hold hands.
I wrote an emotional post on Facebook and someone replied saying you should do a rally - So I did! I made an event on Facebook and then suddenly 6,000 people said they were coming, and I was like shit. What happens now?
I was actually going to feign sickness, but I had the amazing support of people who helped me with the organisational side of things. I guess in short I just organised it I picked the speakers, I kind of art directed it in a sense, and then did all the communicating with police and insurance all that kind of stuff.
Something I gained knowledge of from this protest was that the older and younger generations just don't communicate that well with each other. Our generation knows how to package things and make them attractive for social media. The older generation knows how to mobilize people and organise demonstrations, but there's a distinct lack of communication between the generations. I just think a lot of politics, in general, doesn’t have enough well-intentioned creatives working in it. That’s why Obama did well because there were a lot of young people involved. That’s why Scotland’s referendum was really galvanizing for young people because they realised there was a lot at stake for them. A lot of the time, we don’t really know how much is at stake for us, and we're distracted, or we don’t feel like we have a right or know enough to talk about these things. The reality is that politics impacts every decision you make, when you take the train that money that you’re paying for your oyster - all those decisions are political and come from somewhere.
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"What I’m really interested in is studying the things that we were told to stay away from, told not to study."
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BB: With Heroes of Displacement, what did you want the audience to come away with?
AD: I think it's really important that we document our own communities because if we don’t, other people who do have the resources and means will come and do it. They will be the ones championed for doing something for that community. We should do it ourselves, because we can. We have to control our own narratives and once we do we’ll understand the nuances of that a bit more. If someone comes and takes a photo in Lagos, and the rest of the world has never seen that before, they become the expert on Lagos to those people.
Like I said before, what I’m really interested in is studying the things that we were told to stay away from, told not to study. History favours the victor - the people who won the battle are the ones who get to write the history of the battle, but does that not mean the people that lived there before had no history themselves? There’s a lot of African practices and ways of life that when you break it down and put Greek mythology next to it, well it's basically the same thing.
BB: I saw a really similar thing where they broke down Christianity and Ancient Egyptian mythology as parallels, where they broke down Jesus being the Son of God and Ra being the Sun God, the parallels between the two are striking. We’ve been continually repackaging mythologies under a new name. It’s just a case of whoever shouts the loudest or who can enforce it with violence gets to be the one who dictates history.
AD: That’s the sort of stuff I’m interested in. I was reading a thing about Voodoo today, and I was like why am I afraid of something I know nothing about, that’s how doctrine works? We’ve been told not to look into it and not to investigate it and it's bad, and we’ve just come to accept that. The manner in which we are nurtured is problematic. I have no problem with Christianity or Islam, but when you are raised in a society that's led by them you become aware. Those aren’t West African traditions, it's only endemic there now because it was taken there, and it just becomes about control and enforcement.
So, I guess with HOD it was like saying look man, ultimately wherever you’re from, whatever in your history you’re interested in, it’s a call to arms to go and explore that. For me it’s an ancestral conversation. There’s been a lot of people in our families and bloodlines who haven’t always been Christian, and it’s about exploring that. On the surface it may seem like I’m having a go at imperialism or colonialism, and yeah I obviously I am, but at the same time it’s more for people to feel a sense of worth, a sense of ownership. What they teach you in school is less than half of the real story. I’m just trying to disrupt energy and encourage people to speak a little bit more and see familiarities in what they are watching or how they are engaging in space. Whether you’re an academic or not there are just things that indigenous people have, whether it’s an experience or something in their way of life that you can’t explain, and that’s how it's always been.
Trying to do this through an art space is quite interesting for me. I’ve always had imposter syndrome and I’ve only just started calling myself an artist. To me, I am an artist because much of what I do is me trying to express myself and I don’t care if people like it. I mean yeah, I would much rather people liked it or didn’t like it. But I definitely want it to get to a space where it’s a lot more polarizing. I don’t want everyone to like my stuff, I don’t want to be an antagonist or anything but I’m not trying to please everyone. As soon as I can come to terms with that the more honest my work will be, but you know I’m in my infancy as a filmmaker, I’m definitely in my infancy in the art world.
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"I like my films to be political but without beating people over the head with my point of view."
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BB: You hit the nail on the head with young people, it's not about being apathetic. What I found, even on my Masters, was that when we do try and engage in political conversation with academics and older generations you are just automatically spoken down to. Which seems crazy, because youth engagement in politics has enormous potential!
AD: Yeah! We outnumber them - that’s why it's good to keep us apathetic. If we all voted then we would outnumber them. More often than not, us and middle England - old white people - we have similar interests, but it's just people with wealth voting in their interest to protect their wealth because they understand the need to do that. Whereas the rest of us we just don’t engage and actually maybe like 70-80% of decision will impact us. I don’t really believe in many political systems but it's still important to participate.
It’s the same in film, it’s like the idea of a revolution is very romantic but its just not going to happen, you’ve got to change it from within. You’ve got to apply the same tact and cunning as when you’re trying to negotiate in what you do for a living. it's what I love to do in my films but it's not the sole purpose of them. I like my films to be political but without beating people over the head with my point of view. Also, my point of view is highly subjective to what benefits me and my community, that might not benefit someone in Buckinghamshire or Cambridgeshire.
What did you do your masters in?
BB It was in Security and Justice so a mix of international security and international law. I found it problematic because it all seemed so contradictory: it’s like we are so ready to act and intervene on the global scale but we just will never be there afterwards, we are so invested in making the initial contact and being able to say we intervened, but we are not prepared to be there in the aftermath, I became very apathetic towards the end of that course.
AD: it's just like the political model you know? In four year terms, you can’t achieve anything, you’ve got just about enough time to ruin everything the last person did. It’s just pure self-serving capitalism, which is why when you ask me what my work is about or what growing up in Nigeria is like I’m more interested in community. Working with those around you, that could be enough to survive by working for the good of the community around you, but when you’re force-fed the idea of being an individual and every man for himself the whole time it seems community just has less value. Then you go to somewhere where they have less resources and poverty is pretty dire, but the working class can get by, quality of life is probably a bit better. Not to say they aren’t striving, but you know we live here and we pay a month what those people will earn in a lifetime.. and you know were the ones who are stressed out.
BB: When I say home, what are the first things you think of?
AD: This is going to sound quite self-centred but I just think about myself. I don’t believe in the idea of borders, I don’t believe that a place or an idea is what determines anything about me. I think I’m the person that defines me. I know at this stage in my life there's a lot of unpacking, a lot of decolonising to do, but the only thing I know that is sufficient enough to take care of me is me, and my community in the greater sense. I can make community wherever I am.
I just think home is you. You are born with everything you need, you just acquire all this information that makes you doubt yourself, like what is your talent? If you’re not academic what’s your talent? If you’re not sporty what's your talent? If you can’t sing etc. Whereas I think just having a high level of empathy is a talent, just being a nice person is a talent. Being charming is a talent. There are so many things you can’t quantify which I think is problematic for a lot of people, who want to quantify them.
Home has to represent this ideal, even for me if it had to represent a physical space, then I’m trying to challenge that physical space. Wherever I am I’m interested in trying to compassionately challenge those things. I’m really fucking cheesy you know - I was watching a Serena Williams documentary on a plane recently, and she said that fear has always been central to what she does. Without disruption and fear what do really have to confront? What are we doing if we are not like fighting fear? What are we really learning?
So, left to me home is wherever I am, wherever I feel comfortable. I’m not possessive in terms of places or an idea and people. If I moved to Beirut, where I just was, within like 6 or 10 months I'd find my people there. If I move anywhere in the world after a time, I would probably find my people. I’m sure it would be hard and I would ache for the people and the place I just came from. But from a more pragmatic standpoint, home – London, Lagos, only because I have to pay tax or keep my shit somewhere.
BB: This is a question that we often ask our interviewees, and the reason we ask is to challenge the notion that we're bound by our borders, we're not defined by one place, whether that be your home or nation. And the answers people often give, whether it’s the smell of my Mum's cooking or whatever, these things aren’t anchoring you to any one country or city, those are sensations you carry within yourself, you’re defined by what you carry with you, you're defined by you.
AD: What about you, what’s home for you?
BB: No one’s asked me that before, I’d say my Mum's voice, the sound of my Mum's voice bouncing off the wall asking my dad to bring her a cup of tea. Or more recently I think it’s been the laughter of my sisters baby, wherever I’ve been whether that’s been in their house in Hackney or at home with my parents, or in the pub if I hear his laugh that’s been where I’ve wanted to be.
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"Wherever you’re from, whatever in your history you’re interested in, it’s a call to arms to go and explore that."
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BB: It feels a little at odds, when talking about galleries, museums and exhibition halls, just established spaces and institutions. We are trying to push for more BAME artists own self-representation in these spaces, and it seems we are only just becoming aware of the extent of the colonial hangover that haunts these spaces. We’re trying to get these people into these spaces despite knowing how much these spaces have misrepresented art for hundreds of years. Why are we not creating more of our own spaces where we can dictate the rules and hierarchy?
AD: I agree, I do agree wholeheartedly, but I also disagree, because those spaces aren’t going anywhere. There’s always going to be kids not like us, who haven’t got to this level of understanding yet, who are going to walk into these established spaces and say this is what art is. Kerry james Marshall said all of this in an interview recently, the Tate isn’t going out of business soon, neither is the British Museum, so it’s important that we get work into these spaces, and its shown as equal not just subjugated to the African section or whatever. It’s important that when kids go there, that they can see paintings of themselves.
It’s also more important that these institutions stop just having a conversation of diversity at the ground level and can point a mirror at themselves, in terms of their staff and their commissioners and their curators. Because if they’re not diverse at those levels it's just tokenism, that’s all they’re doing until its off the agenda. They need to have more diverse people in there so they can understand the sensitivities of the impact of colonialism.
That word diversity is increasingly becoming a dirty word for me. It’s an important word but it’s become dirty for me. A lot of the people doing this diversity thing are not diverse you know. I’ve seen a lot of my friends, directors who are signed. I’m like cool, but look where you’re signed, have you looked at the books of where you’re signed, are they diverse? Are you getting to shoot all the films you want or are you being pigeonholed and given black films? If the conversation about diversity is not happening within hierarchy then it’s not really happening, at all.
BB: it’s the difference between practicing what you preach or it being an empty marketing slogan that’s in vogue this year.
AD: And people just trying to capitalise on it - If you have a black director you can pitch for more black stuff, if you’ve got a female director you can send her all female artists and give her those kinds of scripts, whereas the old boys who have been there for ages, get to pitch on anything. You know?
BB: Until we make a change to what’s on top of the ladder, we're all going to be climbing up the same ladder expecting things to be better at the top, and if we don’t change what’s on the top what’s the point in changing the ladder at all.
BB: Other than as pure visual stimuli, what purpose can moving images play in the 21st Century?
AD: I think it’s a problem if its seen as just pure stimuli, because I think that’s just aesthetics. I think aesthetics don’t always need to have a message. Sometimes we just want to be ratchet (I don't like that word by the way), but you know one day we can talk about politics and the next day just do dumb shit. Moving image is becoming a lot more sought after because everyone understands how far it can go. You’re more likely to have an emotional reaction to moving image. You can have that same reaction to still photography depending on how explicit it is, but you can touch on way more on an emotional spectrum with moving image.
But me, I’m interested by the subtext. You can pump water or natural gas out of the ground, but what are you putting in the ground in the first place to get that out. People just don’t understand that. Ultimately, I remember some of the things I watched as a kid that made me want to make films or got me interested in images, and I hope there’s more stuff like that as opposed to more sensationalist stuff, like images of like violence. I'm very sensitive to violence. I think violence and sex are cheap, not to say they aren’t great, but selling sex and violence is too cheap to catch peoples attention, that’s such a male point of view. Those are the two ways men have been allowed to express themselves, through their control and patriarchy, how they possess and control other people’s bodies and what they can do with them and look at them.
I think it's about getting to a point where we start figuring out how to make people feel stronger, how to have a sense of worth and make people feel supported. How images can do that is what I think is important, not even through the storytelling but what the image looks like. What the grade looks like, what the colour is like - all those little things are things I’m increasingly more obsessed with. A story is a story you can figure that out but its all those other things. Its like body language and figuring that out. I’m trying to figure out the body language of moving image.
As a black filmmaker or as an indigenous filmmaker you have a responsibility to understand that if you shoot a gun even if you’re aiming at one person, there’s people watching. There are people in the foreground, people in the background who witness that. People who will take away that image being shot for the rest of their life, that will influence how they see things how they see you how they see the person you aimed at. That’s the thing about stereotypes, if we're only ever showing people in a certain light other people are only ever going to see them in that light. I hope people just think about it more.... or not.
BB: What does 2019 hold for Crack Stevens?
AD: I’m going to be very diplomatic and say whatever I deserve. I’m a goal oriented person but I don’t write my New Year’s resolution until New Year's Day. And you know I’m not in a rush to be successful or perceived to be successful. I mean yeah I’d like some money of course, I hope I evolve more as a human. I hope I get better at the things I’m not so good at. I hope I manage to find balance within my life and within my work. But really, it’s like whatever I deserve to be honest. I think hopefully whatever seeds I’ve tried to sow, they’re not going to sow straight away, there’s a chain of thought. Someone said that it takes 6 years to establish yourself in something, so I just want to improve on what I’ve done this year and be more committed to myself and more committed to my ideas.
Peace.
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Twitter: @crackstevens
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Words By: Luc Hinson, 07th January 2019
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