In the Black Fantastic: Cauleen Smith x Ayanna Witter-Johnson
Cauleen Smith is an interdisciplinary artist whose work reflects upon the everyday possibilities of the imagination.
She is also one of 11 contemporary artists from the African diaspora whose work featured in the 2022 Hayward Gallery exhibition, In the Black Fantastic, curated by Ekow Eshun. Bringing together work from artists who draw on science fiction, myth and Afrofuturism to question our knowledge of the world, In the Black Fantastic also inspired us to produce a four-part podcast series, which drew on its themes.
In this, the third episode of the series, hosted by Chrystal Genesis, Smith joined the musician Ayanna Witter-Johnson for a discussion that touched on exploring the possibilities of the future whilst drawing from the past, creating a hospitable space for their respective audiences, and a shared love of Alice Coltrane.
‘I was really interested in what a wonderful metaphor that universe was for the potentials of Blackness and various understandings of it; as an experience, as a sociological marker, as a material.’
Operating in multiple materials and arenas, Cauleen Smith roots her work firmly within the discourse of mid-20th-century experimental film. Drawing from structuralism, developing world cinema and science fiction, she makes things that deploy the tactics of these disciplines while offering a phenomenological experience for spectators and participants.
Featured within In the Black Fantastic were Smith’s installation piece Epistrophy (2018), in which sentimental objects are projected onto video footage of landscapes using CCTV cameras; and BLK FMNNST Loaner Library 1989–2019 (2019), a set of thirty drawings of books that have inspired Cauleen Smith’s interdisciplinary practice. The gouache drawings in this series depict publications, including novels by Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison and Octavia E. Butler.
Ayanna Witter-Johnson is a composer, singer, songwriter and cellist whose work seamlessly crosses the boundaries of classical, jazz, reggae, soul and R&B. She has collaborated with artists including Anoushka Shankar, Nitin Sawhney, Andrea Bocelli and Jools Holland, and as a composer Witter-Johnson has been commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Güerzenich Orchester, Ligeti Quartet, Kronos Quartet and The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company to name but a few. She may be familiar to Southbank Centre audiences from her two-night appearance as part of our Purcell Sessions series in June 2022.
Listen to more podcasts in this series
This podcast series is hosted and executive produced by Chrystal Genesis, produced by Jaja Muhammad, researched by Zara Martin, mixed by Carmela DiClemente, and was conceived by Glen Wilson.
The exhibition of 11 contemporary artists of the African diaspora, from which this conversation drew inspiration, was at Hayward Gallery 29 June–18 September, 2022.