Baldwin's Nigger Reloaded II

A performance developed from a re-inscribed script of James Baldwin's 1968 speech at the West Indian Students Centre in Kensington, West London, as captured by Horace Ové in his 1969 verité film Baldwin's Nigger.

Between 2014 and 2018 Asante and the sorryyoufeeluncomfortable collective have been in a practice of study around the issues Baldwin brings up in Horace Ové's film. As part of this project, there were many events, actions, publications, and artworks were made, including many performances created from workshops where after watching the film the discussion would feed into new re-inscribed scripts, that would imagine how Baldwin might perceive the world in the moment of the workshops.

This particular performance was developed with Languid Hands (Rabz Lansiquot and Imani Mason Jordan former members of the sorryyoufeeluncomfortable collective) using the archive of scripts as a prompt to make a new script for presenting within the context of the Get Up, Stand Up exhibition.

The documentation of this performance is followed by a discussion with the audience.