Gasworks presents a major new film commission by London-based filmmaker and artist Ufuoma Essi. Informed by Black feminist epistemology, her films and moving image works examine history as an embodied experience.

Essi intercuts archival footage with heterogeneous materials, including VHS tapes and YouTube clips as well as analogue 16mm and super 8mm footage shot on location. It is through an embodied exploration of archives that her work aims to disrupt the silences and gaps in the dominant visual narratives. With an acute sense of rhythm and syncopation, her films weave together the lived experiences and transgenerational histories of Black women’s resilience and creativity in the face of systemic violence.

Is My Living in Vain is a meditation on the continuing history and emancipatory potential of the Black church as a space of belonging, affirmation and community organising. Combining shot footage, oral histories and archive material from both sides of the Atlantic, the film follows a tangled thread of personal and collective memories to interrogate the church’s contribution to a Black radical tradition.

Source: gasworks