Mirage, 20 Years On - Discussion and Screening

On the 20th anniversary of Mirage: Enigmas Of Race, Difference & Desire at the ICA, curated by David A Bailey and organised in collaboration with INIVA, the ICA asks the question: if the 1995 project marked a moment of considering the importance of Frantz Fanon and ways in which his writings on post-colonialism, identity, cinema and psychoanalysis intertwined with artistic practices and race, then what should the contemporary moment reflect upon? Where are we now in relation to structural violence, de-colonising culture and relations, and the power of aesthetics and its explorations of complex formations of racial identities?

This evening event will feature a discussion between David A Bailey and Allison Thompson on the importance of looking back at Mirage now, followed by a screening of Isaac Julien’s 1996 film Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask.

Organised in collaboration with David A. Bailey, ICF the International Curators Forum, UAL University of the Arts London, RCA Curating Contemporary Art Programme, Live Art Development Agency, Tiwani Contemporary, and realised with support from Arts Council England, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research Harvard University and Henry Louis Gates Jr.

David A Bailey MBE is a photographer, writer, curator, lecturer and cultural facilitator who lives and works in London. David A Bailey’s practice is focused on the issues that relate to the question of representation in the areas of photography, performance and artists’ film. These interests have informed his appointment as an adviser, and subsequent curator with Autograph (ABP) and the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) in 1994. One of his main concerns is the notion of diaspora in art. He co-curated the groundbreaking exhibitions Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance with Richard J Powell at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1997, and Back to Black: Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary with Petrine Archer-Straw and Richard J Powell at Whitechapel Art Gallery in London in 2005. David A Bailey has written extensively about visual art and performance. From 1996 to 2002, he was Co-Director of the African and Asian Visual Artists Archive (AAVAA) at the University of East London. From 2005 to 2009, he was Senior Curator of Autograph (ABP), and from 2005 to 2011 he was a Curator at Platform for the Remember Saro-Wiwa Living Memorial. Since 2006, he has been the founder and Director of the International Curators Forum, and between 2009 and 2010, he was the Acting Director of the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas in Nassau.  David A Bailey was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2007, for services to art.

Allison Thompson (PhD) is Director of the Centre for the Visual and Performing Arts at the Barbados Community College where she has been teaching since 1986.  She is co-director/curator at PUNCH Creative Arena, an initiative for creative action in Barbados. Thompson has worked with a number of cultural organizations in the Caribbean including the Barbados National Art Gallery Committee, ICOM Barbados, and is the founding president of AICA Southern Caribbean. She has worked with the Black Diaspora Visual Arts project since 2007, organizing a series of symposiums and exhibitions aimed at creating greater visibility for Caribbean art and developing stronger and sustainable working relationships throughout the diaspora. She is co-author of the book Art in Barbados: What kind of mirror image and co-edited Curating in the Caribbean with contributions from nine curators, writers and artists working in the region.

Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask is a 70-minute drama-documentary film produced in 1996 by Isaac Julien and Mark Nash. The impetus for the film project was to restore to academic and artistic discourses a recognition of both the originality and contradictory nature of this major thinker. Interviews, reconstructions and archive footage tell the story of the life and work of the highly influential anti-colonialist writer Frantz Fanon, author of Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth and his professional life as a psychiatric doctor in Algeria during its war of independence with France.

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Ticket prices for one event

Full Price: £12
Concessions: £10
Members: £8
Student Members: £5

Multi-buy Offer

Multi-buy Full: £10 per event (£20 for both)
Multi-buy Concession: £9 per event (£18 for both)
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Multi-buy Student Member: £4 per event (£8 for both)