Young Masters Art Prize-shortlisted artist Amartey Golding is looking to raise £6000 in order to finish an art film which satirically uses common depictions of the contemporary black experience as an entrance point to observing the overarching themes of the human condition. Using an all-black male cast, the film explores the most basic human behaviours and their various manifestations, both timeless and how they arise in contemporary life.
Golding says ‘Although there’s been a lot in the media recently about inequalities in the film industry around using people of colour, this is not the main focus of this film. Whatever I do, I am almost always directed to the ‘black art’ department, pointed towards the ‘diversity’ section or included in the ‘BAME team.’ I’m not an artist or a filmmaker; I’m a black artist and a black filmmaker. Now, I’m not criticising the amazing work these sectors teams and groups achieve, but I want to use an all-black and mixed race cast to talk about humanity as a whole, rather than being limited to only explore the ‘black experience”? I believe this is possible and vitally important in our current climate and to the arts as a whole therefore this is what this series of films seeks to do.’
The film takes the viewer into fictional, black, inner-city, urban communities, where a discreet culture has been growing amongst the men. This culture is centred around the creation of unique, steel chainmail suits and garments. Each member of the community spends months, sometimes years, creating their own suit to present at the regular Chainmail ceremonies. Each man’s ceremony is as different as the people they are centred around but, at their core, are always a display of strength and vulnerability, of being the victim and oppressor, of encompassing good and evil, in whatever form that might take for the individual.
Help Amartey achieve his goal by pledging your support here
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