Baldwin's Nigger Reloaded

In the 1969 film Baldwin’s Nigger directed by Horace Ove, author James Baldwin and comedian Dick Gregory discuss the black experience in the United States, at an event programmed by the Caribbean Artists Movement at the West Indian Student Centre in Kensington, London. The film candidly captures Baldwin’s speech given in the wake of the death of Martin Luther King. The speech highlights the danger in separating identities from their specific histories; the state of the world at that time and presents some radical possibilities for the future  . 

This first iteration of Baldwin's Nigger Reloaded was presented at Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) in 2014. Initiated by Barby Asante, the project was realised in collaboration with the then Iniva’s Education Curator Teresa Cisneros and ‘sorryyoufeeluncomfortable’ collective. It provided a space for young people to reinterpret, re-perform and reflect, on the subjects of race identity, politics and activism as raised in Horace’s film. Through a process of research and personal creative development, visiting sites such as the George Padmore Institute, the Live Art Development Agency, Iniva’s Stuart Hall Library and other places, the project culminated in a day long take over of Rivington Place. Barby and the collective created an active space, involving interventions, performances, DJ sets, workshops and film screenings, that explored themes such as identity, race, legacy, critical thinking and a re-animation of histories through collaborative artistic practices, using the memory of the film to imagine strategies for the future.

This project saw the development of the sorryyoufeeluncomfortable collective. Click here to view the project blog.