#duchampandsons

How do you come to feel part of a community? Over six months, artist Ayo Akingbade collaborated with Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective Duchamp & Sons to explore ideas of place and belonging. Through workshops, screenings and fieldwork in the local area, they traced memories of displacement and the meaning of home, interrogating present challenges and future aspirations.

Echoing the uncertain times we live in, the new commission Fire In My Belly (2021) offers a compelling portrait of London through the voices of young people, as they navigate an uncharted road map of the city. 

After watching Aint Got No Fear, we had a Q&A session with Mikhail.

Josh: How are the kids to work with? They looked a little rowdy, like the way they’re going like this [signals]? [laughter]

MK: Oh no, they’re totally performing that.

Josh: Okay so they’re not like that normally?

MK: They’re not, I don’t tell them how to perform. I think what is interesting is that they’re at this in between age – between being men and being children, like one moment they’re being children and the next they want to be gangstas and I think there’s this kind of inconsistency which I quite like, because of that age being 14 years old and the kind of models of masculinity they have or aspire to, they come from videos where they see rappers doing this or that [signals] but they’re totally over-performing it for each other. The thing is I never tell people what to do, so with young people I’m usually on good terms with them because I don’t think my role is to tell them what to do, on the contrary they should tell me what to do. I think it’s nice, sometimes they were rowdy but I quite like it.

Sammara: Did you come into contact with any of their parents since you showed some projects in the village?

MK: I came in contact with them and of course the parents were invited to all of this but a lot of the kids only have one parent or if they have two they work a lot which means they’re absent quite a lot so it wasn’t so straightforward to meet the parents. But of course we needed permission from the parents to work with the children so when the children knew they were interested in taking part in the project we gave them a form and said can you show this to your parents and ask them to sign it? The thing is we received the forms back signed but I don’t know who actually signed them, could have been them… I don’t know. There were a couple of parents who came to Whitstable Biennale to see the film. We organised a coach to bring them, that day was very nice because parents, grandparents, very young children– their younger brothers came, so there was like three generations which was very nice but there hasn’t been a follow up although I’ve tried many things but I understand it’s not easy and expensive to follow the life of the video.

Tsw Wai: So you’re an artist who does socially engaged projects, so art is no longer an individual thing but a collective experience, so how does this translate to your own personal vision as an artist?

MK: That’s a very good question because that is also my personal vision. I sometimes think wherever I go there’s a kind of ship and I try to kind of steer it, not telling people what to do but somehow whoever’s interested in coming on board, developing a project with them. I create, I suppose a conversation with people, you know this communal vision. There is always a kind of material focus, I’m very interested in sound and the voice so that‘s a consistent aesthetic development that you see from one project to the next. Yeah, I mean I don’t know how else to answer this question. My individual vision, I guess when I do these projects is not different from what it is that we create together, it’s part of it.

Chiara: Do you think of the way your work practically transforms the space and the lives of the people you work with, the process but also or the legacy or if it has the power to transform?

MK: Well, I always think about this because I have to leave and that’s the thing. These children are not in my neighbourhood, they’re somewhere else, and I’m lucky that most of my projects are Britain so I always think what the legacy of the project is. The answer is not really straightforward I think. When I work with older people for me, it’s always easier. Working with this group and a project in 2013 with younger kids aged between 5 and 11 in Italy, I become similarly attached and especially with this it was very painful. Actually, on my way back on the train I’d cry because it was just impossible! How can I leave when they wanted me to stay longer and do things with them and I was really thinking what can an art project do? They live in a kind of difficult place but then they will give me feedback, unsolicited feedback which remains. A boy wrote to me saying ‘oh yeah, I’ve been feeling very blue all week except for when you’re here and I can’t wait for you to come back to the project, I really enjoyed it’. Just things like that are amazing. This project is very important to me but actually it’s very important to them, it really means a lot to them to make something and I think what else comes across is how it might change their visions of themselves in the future.

So, at some point I give them cameras and one of the boys, he’s a very talented photographer naturally and I told him ‘you’re super talented and have amazing potential’, I think he’s not used to receiving a lot of compliments so he didn’t say anything. Then later on they’d ask me where I’ve been to during the week because sometimes I have a crazy schedule and I’m in three countries in three days, and Eddie (the boy) said ‘oh my God I would love that travelling to places’ and at that point I told him ‘you’re a very talented photographer, how about thinking of becoming a photo journalist?’, and we just left us with that. A month later I was talking to his mum she told me ‘this project is quite important to Eddie I think because one, he is very excited about it. You know his dad’s a lorry driver, he doesn’t know anything else, and the other day he came up with the idea of becoming a photojournalist! [Laughter]

I think it kind of made them realise that there are other possibilities, other ways of thinking about themselves in the future which is something positive I think.

Valentina: How often do you keep in touch with them?

MK: Now? Depends. Usually when there is an event connects the project I messaged them on Facebook. Sometimes they’re really amazed that I put something on Facebook and there’s like 200 people responding to it and they’re like ‘Oh my God’  and they’re really proud.

Renee: I had a question about the boys drumming on the police helmets, you said you were going to tell us a story about that?

MK: Yeah, I don’t know if people got it because, it was quite a short sequence. It came out of both humour and being angry.

R: Yeah, a kind of protest but in a kind of jokey way.

MK: Yeah, it’s a kind of jokey reversal of roles because usually you see police helmets hitting civilians and this was a kind of a reversal of that, they’re making music and noise out of it. So there’s another one which most people don’t really see but it’s totally fine, at the end of that sequence there’s an image of an inflatable pig on the ground which some people got when we showed it. It was a combination of two things, one of them was a girl told me ‘I’m going to be in your video only as long as I dress as a pig’, so I said ‘okay I’ll bring a pig’- also because she loves pink- and then you can be in my film. But on the day we were shooting that she wasn’t around, she didn’t turn up so the boys said ‘yeah but the police are pigs’. I guess there were quite a lot of parents who thought what did you use our children for? [Laughter] But I think it’s subtle enough that it’s not offensive unless a police man watches it in which case if they’re offended I would love that!

Sammara: Do you think this particular film made any political changes in the area, like an enrichment centre for young people?

MK: I very much doubt that. That connects with some of my despair when I was working there and even thinking that that place is so infrastructurally neglected by the government; this is not a job for an artist, this is a job for politicians and the local councillor to address these issues. I don’t have the skills nor the resources to bring change what it’s doing is bringing light to an issue for people to discuss and be aware of. The film been seen by thousands of people not just here but internationally so we generate debate but I think the most important thing is that it actually has brought about some change in relation to the kids and how they feel about themselves and their confidence. I think at the beginning of the project they probably thought was impossible for them to make a film, I mean how do you even begin to make a film or write a song? For me that is my important.

There are artists/activists whose work specifically targets politicians and highlights I suppose in a confrontational way political issues but I don’t think I have that in me. I have very strong opinions about politics but usually my character is a bit gentler, in a more humanist way, thinking about how can I work with people to do something that is interesting for them and bring something to them. It’s kind of more emotional and psychological the kind of change my projects bring rather than large-scale political. I wish I had the skills but I don’t think I have. I’m outspoken but I don’t have the calm; I think if I was having a debate with a politician I would probably freak out, I think I probably lose it. [Laughter] I’m not able to keep myself together. You know what I mean, when you’re upset and you’re kind of losing the plot and you don’t know what to say.

Hafsah: I noticed how you felt quite passionate about the interview, being controlled by the police and the raves being shut down. How can you relate to them, have you had an experience yourself that you feel like you’re being controlled by someone who is in authority?

MK: Oh my God, all the time! [Laughter]

School was terrible, I mean my school was absolutely terrible in terms of being controlled and also hit by my teachers.

Josh: What, you were hit?

MK: Hit, of course I’m slightly older than you, I was hit by my teachers.

Josh: With a cane as well?

MK: Cane as well. I’ve been slapped which is so common, so humiliating for someone obviously bigger than you, more powerful than you to hit you! You know they’re going to win anyway and I knew I was going to lose anyway so what’s the point? It was not an equal battle but I mean I do feel angry every time my ticket is controlled. From home to Saint Pancras station I have been photographed by I don’t know how many hundreds of cameras then I have to go to the ticket barriers, then get on the train and within five minutes there’s someone searching my ticket because I’m suspect, I mean everybody is a suspect, everybody is a potential thief, everybody has potentially cheated! I mean to think about it there’s so much distrust that you think that I’ve been able to evade all this surveillance and the ticket control and the controller on the train, I just think that this is a culture of suspicion which I absolutely despise and it makes me very angry, well this amongst other things. [Laughter]

And I guess there is one more point, the older generation. I feel very controlled by the political class that is slightly older taking decisions that don’t represent me and I know don’t represent your generation. Like what happen with Brexit referendum, I think the older generation who will not be so much affected by it. All of us actually have said the people that are going to have to live with the consequences more than us are the generation that are just coming after us. Let’s have some sort of consultations in school and get some indication into what young people are thinking, people who don’t have a political voice yet because they’re 16 or 15,  let’s ask them to have the some sort of political debate about this and maybe each school to give some kind of result, an indication throughout the country as to how this younger generation thinks about this issue, that could have been taken into account but you see the older generation that have the power didn’t care about this which I think is horrendous. It doesn’t matter what side it was even if the results were pro Brexit I think we should have asked younger generation so I’m angry about that too!

Akraam: Were you at the Lulu dress rehearsal (ENO)?

MK: Oh right, yes I was.

Akraam and Mo: Yeah, we remember you, you were sitting in front of us and you were wearing this same hat.

MK: Really, I think it was similar.

Renee: And you had on a big coat.

MK: Oh yes, I remember now, it was the light blue woolly coat.

Josh: Where did you get your hat from and your clothes?

MK: It’s from a place in Covent Garden called United Nude.

Josh: I’m googling it now?

D&S: And when you were working with the young people do you wear these clothes?

MK: No, I tone it down.

Thanks Mikhail!

After meeting Mikhail, the Invitation & Design team worked on the final idea for the poster for publicizing the event and the message to accompany it. It was challenging to come to a decision for an image upon which we all agreed but we finally went with a combination of two images that each represented freedom and control. I’m really excited about the event, as I think the group have worked together to create a great collaborative work and I can’t wait to see how the afternoon turns out.

Here’s a transcript of our discussion with him: 

Mikhail Karikis: Renee mentioned the word socially engaged project, do you know what that might be?

Sammara: Is it that you work with the different boys in the film? I read that on your website.

MK: Thank you for being honest.

[Laughter] 

MK: Yeah but as a practice in general- socially engaged art practice- what do you think might be?

Hafsah: Involving the public?

MK: In principle, this is what it means. Then how would you engage the public and why would you engage the public? So maybe in the last decade or so, I’ve created works that belong to this genre which for me means that I don’t work in the studio, like a lot of painters or directors, they would know their plan in advance of what they’re going to make and then go and shoot. Usually my work is site- specific, meaning that I’m always developing my projects in specific locations with people who inhabit these locations, people living there or working there and usually through my work I’m trying to understand what their lives are like, how they make a living, what relationships they have and then we develop a project together. So it’s not as if I’m kind of going there, picking up a camera and filming them and then go away, I mean some people might call this socially engaged but actually where is the engagement? I usually develop relationships when I make these projects and it takes usually quite a lot of time and then negotiate with the people that I collaborate with on what it is to make.

After watching Aint Got No Fear, we had a Q&A session.

Josh: How were the kids to work with? They looked a little rowdy, like the way they’re going like this [signals]? [Laughter]

MK: Oh no, they’re totally performing that. 

Josh: Okay so they’re not like that normally?

MK: They’re not, I don’t tell them how to perform. I think what is interesting is that they’re at this in between age – between being men and being children, like one moment they’re being children and the next they want to be gangstas and I think there’s this kind of inconsistency which I quite like, because of that age being 14 years old and the kind of models of masculinity they have or aspire to, they come from videos where they see rappers doing this or that [signals] but they’re totally over-performing it for each other. The thing is I never tell people what to do, so with young people I’m usually on good terms with them because I don’t think my role is to tell them what to do, on the contrary they should tell me what to do. I think it’s nice, sometimes they were rowdy but I quite like it. 

Sammara: Did you come into contact with any of their parents since you showed some projects in the village?

MK: I came in contact with them and of course the parents were invited to all of this but a lot of the kids only have one parent or if they have two they work a lot which means they’re absent quite a lot so it wasn’t so straightforward to meet the parents. But of course, we needed permission from the parents to work with the children so when the children knew they were interested in taking part in the project we gave them a form and said can you show this to your parents and ask them to sign it? The thing is we received the forms back signed but I don’t know who actually signed them, could have been them… I don’t know. There were a couple of parents who came to Whitstable Biennial to see the film. We organised a coach to bring them, that day was very nice because parents, grandparents, very young children– their younger brothers came, so there were like three generations which was very nice but there hasn’t been a follow up although I’ve tried many things but I understand it’s not easy and expensive to follow the life of the video.

Tsw Wai: So you’re an artist who does socially engaged projects, so art is no longer an individual thing but a collective experience, so how does this translate to your own personal vision as an artist?

MK: That’s a very good question because that is also my personal vision. I sometimes think wherever I go there’s a kind of ship and I try to kind of steer it, not telling people what to do but somehow whoever’s interested in coming on board, developing a project with them. I create, I suppose a conversation with people, you know this communal vision. There is always a kind of material focus, I’m very interested in sound and the voice so that‘s a consistent aesthetic development that you see from one project to the next. Yeah, I mean I don’t know how else to answer this question. My individual vision, I guess when I do these projects is not different from what it is that we create together, it’s part of it.

Chiara: Do you think of the way your work practically transforms the space and the lives of the people you work with, the process but also or the legacy or if it has the power to transform? 

MK: Well, I always think about this because I have to leave and that's the thing. These children are not in my neighbourhood, they’re somewhere else, and I'm lucky that most of my projects are Britain so I always think what the legacy of the project is. The answer is not really straightforward I think. When I work with older people for me, it's always easier. Working with this group and a project in 2013 with younger kids aged between 5 and 11 in Italy, I become similarly attached and especially with this it was very painful. Actually, on my way back on the train I'd cry because it was just impossible! How can I leave when they wanted me to stay longer and do things with them and I was really thinking what can an art project do? They live in a kind of difficult place but then they will give me feedback, unsolicited feedback which remains. A boy wrote to me saying ‘oh yeah, I’ve been feeling very blue all week except for when you're here and I can’t wait for you to come back to the project, I really enjoyed it’. Just things like that are amazing. This project is very important to me but actually it's very important to them, it really means a lot to them to make something and I think what else comes across is how it might change their visions of themselves in the future. 

So, at some point I give them cameras and one of the boys, he's a very talented photographer naturally and I told him ‘you're super talented and have amazing potential’, I think he's not used to receiving a lot of compliments so he didn't say anything. Then later on they’d ask me where I've been to during the week because sometimes I have a crazy schedule and I'm in three countries in three days, and Eddie (the boy) said ‘oh my God I would love that travelling to places’ and at that point I told him ‘you're a very talented photographer, how about thinking of becoming a photo journalist?’, and we just left us with that. A month later I was talking to his mum she told me ‘this project is quite important to Eddie I think because one, he is very excited about it. You know his dad’s a lorry driver, he doesn't know anything else, and the other day he came up with the idea of becoming a photojournalist! [Laughter]

I think it kind of made them realise that there are other possibilities, other ways of thinking about themselves in the future which is something positive I think.

Valentina: How often do you keep in touch with them?

MK: Now? Depends. Usually when there is an event connects the project I messaged them on Facebook. Sometimes they’re really amazed that I put something on Facebook and there's like 200 people responding to it and they're like ‘Oh my God’  and they're really proud. 

Renee: I had a question about the boys drumming on the police helmets, you said you were going to tell us a story about that?

MK: Yeah, I don't know if people got it because, it was quite a short sequence. It came out of both humour and being angry. 

R: Yeah, a kind of protest but in a kind of jokey way.

MK: Yeah, it's a kind of jokey reversal of roles because usually you see police helmets hitting civilians and this was a kind of a reversal of that, they’re making music and noise out of it. So there’s another one which most people don't really see but it’s totally fine, at the end of that sequence there’s an image of an inflatable pig on the ground which some people got when we showed it. It was a combination of two things, one of them was a girl told me ‘I'm going to be in your video only as long as I dress as a pig’, so I said ‘okay I'll bring a pig’- also because she loves pink- and then you can be in my film. But on the day we were shooting that she wasn't around, she didn't turn up so the boys said ‘yeah but the police are pigs’. I guess there were quite a lot of parents who thought what did you use our children for? [Laughter] But I think it's subtle enough that it's not offensive unless a police man watches it in which case if they're offended I would love that!

Sammara: Do you think this particular film made any political changes in the area, like an enrichment centre for young people?

MK: I very much doubt that. That connects with some of my despair when I was working there and even thinking that that place is so infrastructurally neglected by the government; this is not a job for an artist, this is a job for politicians and the local councillor to address these issues. I don't have the skills nor the resources to bring change what it's doing is bringing light to an issue for people to discuss and be aware of. The film been seen by thousands of people not just here but internationally so we generate debate but I think the most important thing is that it actually has brought about some change in relation to the kids and how they feel about themselves and their confidence. I think at the beginning of the project they probably thought was impossible for them to make a film, I mean how do you even begin to make a film or write a song? For me that is my important.

There are artists whose work specifically targets politicians and highlights I suppose in a confrontational way political issues but I don't think I have that in me. I have very strong opinions about politics but usually my character is a bit gentler, in a more humanist way, thinking about how can I work with people to do something that is interesting for them and bring something to them. It's kind of more emotional and psychological the kind of change my projects bring rather than large-scale political. I wish I had the skills but I don't think I have. I'm outspoken but I don't have the calm; I think if I was having a debate with a politician I would probably freak out, I think I probably lose it. [Laughter] I’m not able to keep myself together. You know what I mean, when you're upset and you're kind of losing the plot and you don't know what to say.

Hafsah: I noticed how you felt quite passionate about the interview, being controlled by the police and the raves being shut down. How can you relate to them, have you had an experience yourself that you feel like you're being controlled by someone who is in authority?

MK: Oh my God, all the time! [Laughter]

School was terrible, I mean my school was absolutely terrible in terms of being controlled and also hit by my teachers. 

Josh: What, you were hit?

MK: Hit, of course I'm slightly older than you, I was hit by my teachers.

Josh: With a cane as well?

MK: Cane as well. I’ve been slapped which is so common, so humiliating for someone obviously bigger than you, more powerful than you to hit you! You know they're going to win anyway and I knew I was going to lose anyway so what's the point? It was not an equal battle but I mean I do feel angry every time my ticket is controlled. From home to St Pancras station I have been photographed by I don't know how many hundreds of cameras then I have to go to the ticket barriers, then get on the train and within five minutes there's someone searching my ticket because I'm suspect, I mean everybody is a suspect, everybody is a potential thief, everybody has potentially cheated! I mean to think about it there’s so much distrust that you think that I've been able to evade all this surveillance and the ticket control and the controller on the train, I just think that this is a culture of suspicion which I absolutely despise and it makes me very angry, well this amongst other things. [Laughter]

And I guess there is one more point, the older generation. I feel very controlled by the political class that is slightly older taking decisions that don't represent me and I know don't represent your generation. Like what happen with Brexit referendum, I think the older generation who will not be so much affected by it. All of us actually have said the people that are going to have to live with the consequences more than us are the generation that are just coming after us. Let’s have some sort of consultations in school and get some indication into what young people are thinking, people who don't have a political voice yet because they're 16 or 15,  let's ask them to have the some sort of political debate about this and maybe each school to give some kind of result, an indication throughout the country as to how this younger generation thinks about this issue, that could have been taken into account but you see the older generation that have the power didn't care about this which I think is horrendous. It doesn't matter what side it was even if the results were pro Brexit I think we should have asked younger generation so I'm angry about that too!

Akraam: Were you at the Lulu dress rehearsal (ENO)?

MK: Oh right, yes I was. 

Akraam and Mo: Yeah, we remember you, you were sitting in front of us and you were wearing this same hat.

MK: Really, I think it was similar. 

Renee: And you had on a big coat. 

MK: Oh yes, I remember now, it was the light blue woolly coat. 

Josh: Where did you get your hat from and your clothes?

MK: It’s from a place in Covent Garden called United Nude. 

Josh: I’m googling it now? 

D&S: And when you were working with the young people do you wear these clothes?

MK: No, I tone it down.

Thanks Mikhail! 

After the discussion, the Invitation & Design team worked on the final idea for the poster for publicising the event and the message to accompany it. It was challenging to come to a decision for an image upon which we all agreed but we finally went with a combination of two images that each represented freedom and control. I’m really excited about the event, as I think the group have worked together to create a great collaborative work and I can’t wait to see how the afternoon turns out.

Today we visited the newly opened William Kentridge: Thick Time exhibition with an introduction by Assistant Curator, Candy Stobbs. We were immersed in moving sculptures, tapestries, drawings, animation, film and music as we thoughtfully moved through the gallery spaces. One could see how ideas about time were made manifest through films that were sped-up, slowed down, looped, overlapped and reversed.

Back in the Creative Studio we spoke about what we’d seen. We discussed how the exhibition involves constant moment, music beating away, churning of mechanical sculptures and how this creates strong sense of time and atmosphere and allure. We felt there was a lot to see in this exhibition.

We also discussed what a creating a tour/ performative response to the exhibition could look like. Ideas were shared about using projectors, contemporary dance and drama inspired by characters, themes and colours used in the exhibition.

Here are some of our comments: 

Last Wednesday’s session introduced us to filmmaker and visual artist Chiara Ambrosio who will be collaborating with us. During the session Chiara presented her work, as well as examples of a variety of animations produced in many different styles. She named William Kentridge and Jan Svankmajer as her influences, amongst others. We also explored the ways in which animation has been used to convey realist subject matter, in connection to the Kentridge exhibition currently on show, and how this can inspire us for our upcoming project. The session was really engaging in getting us to contemplate what possibilities there are with animation.

You can find out more about Chiara’s work here.

Watching Svankmajer

Chiara showing us a puppet from a piece she’s currently working on.