[Phoebe Beckett Chingono] The June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive (JGPACA) is a living archive dedicated to the artistic and cultural narratives of the African diaspora, with an emphasis on Pan African cinema and its connections to Black British cinema. Our installation What They Do Next offered a critical intervention into the Tate, posing this question: When galleries and museums acknowledge their foundation is grounded in the legacies of slavery and colonialism, what do they do next? Through materials like programmes, bios, photographs and educational material from figures within Tate’s collections such as Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Black Audio Film Collective, and filmmakers featured in Tate’s programmes such as Amanda Holiday and Charles Burnett, the artefacts brought together from JGPACA's holdings trace genealogies and connections between artists encountered within the Tate’s activities. This is to illuminate part of the complex histories and processes of exhibition and cultural production by and about African and African diasporic artists.
One highlight is the screening of Mark of the Hand directed by Imruh Bakari, who introduced an exploration of Guyanese painter and Caribbean Artists Movement founder Aubrey Williams. The documentary looks at Williams’s journey back to his roots and the landscapes that shaped his work.
[Imruh Bakari] But of course, nobody even knew who Aubrey Williams was in the Arts Council, who eventually financed this film, and the other artists, it wasn’t even going anywhere, nobody was interested. So here we are. This is the context. This film got made because of a single individual within the Arts Council and on a budget that was the same budget that would have been if you were just running around London. Okay? So we decided it had to be made and it had to be made partly with filming in Guyana. Now, this is part of why I am here, why we are here as JGPACA, about bringing this kind of context, an awareness of this context and the materials that have been overlooked, not necessarily ignored, into the conversation and into use.
[Phoebe Beckett Chingono] The installation also included a rotating film programme featuring works like You Hide Me by Ghanaian filmmaker Nii Kwate Owoo, Statues also Die by Alain Resnais, Chris Marker and Ghislain Cloquet, Rage and Desire by Ruppert Gabriel, a tribute to the influential photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode, and Employing the Image by Amanda Holiday. Our reading table invited participants to sit, talk and reflect.
It was an open call to engage with this living history, to see the archive not as a static repository, but as a dynamic space of gathering, learning and transformation. Based at MayDay Rooms in London, we host screenings, talks and workshops. Follow us @junegivannifilmarchive and visit our website, junegivannifilmarchive.org.
The June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive (JGPACA) holds a unique collection of artefacts and archival material that has its core the interest of Pan-African cinema and its relationship to Black British cinema and culture. Its events and projects reveal histories and ideas in African and African diasporic film, bringing together the work of filmmakers, artists and writers around a wide range of themes, debates and interests.