THIS SUMMER the Southbank Centre in London is exploring contemporary black art and culture with an extraordinary season of multi-artform events, featuring outdoor art, music, literature, poetry and performance, as well as free performance and music.
Summer: In the Black Fantastic is a site-wide celebration that takes a deep dive into new ideas and expressions of black art and popular culture.
ART
The summer events are inspired by the latest Hayward Gallery exhibition, In the Black Fantastic, curated by writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun (June 29 to September 18).
It’s the UK’s first major show dedicated to the work of black artists who use fantastical elements to address racial injustice and explore alternative realities.
There is also a free outdoor art exhibition (until Sunday, September 4) showcasing artists who use fantasy in their work, including renowned figures Hew Locke, Wangechi Mutu and Lina Iris Viktor.
BIG WEEKEND
At the centre of the summer is In the Black Fantastic Weekender (July 15-17), featuring three days of music, poetry, film and talks.
Through myth, science fiction, spiritual traditions and Afrofuturism, artists recontextualise the past and invoke a future where blackness thrives.
To open the Weekender, special guest curator Inua Ellams presented two poetry events Poetry + Film/Hack: Supa Modo and In the Black Fantastic R.A.P Party. Watch Likarion Wainaina’s film Supa Modo and hear live poetry readings that amplify its themes.
Then later that evening experience poetry inspired by myth, fantasy and Afrofuturism with top-notch hip-hop. On Saturday, July 16, The Jazz Cafe and the Southbank Centre present Jazz Legends, a pantheon of cosmic and spiritual jazz musicians, including Sun Ra Arkestra, Norman Connors, Jean Carne and Gary Bartz.
Masked grime maestro CASisDEAD will set off the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Saturday, July 16. His dystopian concept DEADCORP welcomes you into its rain-soaked universe for a unique immersive experience: a night of cinematic synthbacked nostalgia.
MUSIC
The Southbank Centre’s venues will be alive with a varied programme of music as part of Summer: In the Black Fantastic, spanning club, cosmic and cutting-edge new talent.
The figurehead of the Detroit techno scene, Jeff Mills, brings his Afrofunk-electro-jazz ensemble, Tomorrow Comes The Harvest, to the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, July 10 as part of a partnership with fabric. Meanwhile, Alabama’s Pink Siifu will also step into the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer on Saturday, August 6, with support from Goya Gumbani and muva of Earth.
Together, they swing through notes of soul, punk, jazz, rap and experimental.
RIVERSIDE STAGE
Throughout the summer there will also be free DJ takeovers, live music and performance on the Riverside Stage, with artists exploring how The Fantastic can be a gateway to black creative and cultural liberation.
Guest curators include Nwando Ebizie, sxwks, Faggamuffin Bloc Party, BORN N BREAD, Brownton Abbey, Cocoa Butter Club and Colourful.
