InSight

Walking in the Wake

A black-and-white film after Christine Sharpe’s In the Wake On Blackness and Being (2016), Walking in the Wake was produced for the Estuary Festival (2021) in collaboration between the founding WritersMosaic board member Michael McMillan, Elsa James and Dubmorphology (Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison).McMillan’s voiceover commentary meditates on the ebb and flow of the River Thames and the black presence in the English countryside, as we follow twelve black pilgrims walking along the Estuary passing sites of Empire.

Alford Dalrymple Gardner: remembered

Alford Dalrymple Gardner, a Windrush generation pioneer, died last week. In 2023, he visited the Edinburgh International Book Festival to discuss his memoir, Finding Home, with his son, Howard, Lisa Williams and Colin Grant. This film is courtesy of the EIBF archive.

The Forensic and the Fantastic – at the British Library

The WritersMosaic and the Poetry Translation Centre evening of Latinx poetry with multimedia performances and Afro-Colombian music and dance is an antidote to the recent wave of far-right violence unleashed in Britain. Hosted by writer Amanda Vilanova, poets and musicians explored acts of translation between cultures and across media to bring the living poetry of Latin America to the British Library. Film by Rob Akin.

Traveller Writers

The glory of Gypsy, Romany and Traveller writers lies in their diversity – the amorphous, shape-shifting nature of the journeys they undertake to hold on to and develop their sense of belonging to themselves, free of attempts by the non-Romany world to define them. Recently, the novelist Louise Doughty – editor of the WritersMosaic guest edition Blood and Belonging: Traveller Writers – hosted an evening of celebration with filmmaker Jake Bowers, poet Jo Clement, writer Damian Le Bas and the virtuoso Roma musicians, The Romany Diamonds. Film by Rob Akin

James Baldwin’s centenary at the British Library

What's so great about James Baldwin, the boy-preacher, public intellectual, writer and activist? A hundred years after Baldwin's birth, Colin Grant is joined by Chitra Ramaswamy, Vanessa Kisuule, Mendez, Angeline Morrison and Burt Caesar in praise of him at a Speaky Spokey cabaret at the British Library. Film by Rob Akin

Reasons to fear AI: recalling Italo Calvino’s cybernetics & ghosts

Writers Michael Salu, Iphgenia Baal, Tice Cin and Vanessa Onwuemezi in collaboration with the Eccles Centre at the British Library recently reflected on the expansive role that AI & technology play in our lives. Hosted by Amanda Vilanova, the evening explored the uncanny and disturbing possibilities of AI. Filmed by Rob Akin

Abolition and Britain’s wilful amnesia about the Atlantic slave trade

In the second RLF/WritersMosaic collaboration with the British Library, on the publication of Gabriel Gbadamosi's play Abolition, he was joined by writers Bonnie Greer and S.I. Martin to explore Britain’s role in the Atlantic slave trade. The evening included sea shanties recalling English maritime experience, performed by John Dipper and Dave Malkin.

Torn Lace

A WritersMosaic Film based on Shivanee Ramlochan's poem 'The World’s Oldest Woman Offers Herself for Dissection', from Torn Lace, a correspondence between Shivanee Ramlochan and Andre Bagoo. Animation by Holly Telfer. Produced by Missohio Studio.

Blood & Fire: Passion & Lyricism

A SpeakySpokey live literature production at the British Library, October 2023. Filmed and edited by Rob Akin.