The Royal Institute of British Architects has commissioned the artist, scholar and choreographer Adesola Akinleye to create a series of new video artworks inspired by the work of Sir David Adjaye OBE as part of the 2021 Royal Gold Medal celebrations. Learn more here: https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/royal-gold-medal
Akinleye’s pieces respond to a prevalent theme throughout Adjaye’s practice, that of memory, through videos that convey how memories of specific places keep us connected to the sites that we have been physically separated from during the pandemic. The videos invite viewers to be fully present in a cathartic experience that will temporarily take you outside of yourself to share in Akinleye’s multi-layered assemblage of memories.
Akinleye recollects a number of sites that remain important to her and therefore form part of her identity despite their distance from the location of her home. She remembers the presence of her body in different places and conveys this through a layering of imagery, movement and sound that playfully engages the glitch in the Zoom background algorithm. Shot entirely at home, Akinleye reflects on the past year of isolation within the confines of our domestic interiors, and suggests recognising shared experiences of specific buildings can form a collective memory that holds us together as a society.
Dr Adesola Akinleye, FHEA, FRSA is a choreographer artist-scholar. She is founder and currently co-artistic director of DancingStrong Movement Lab.
The poem featured in the audio of the video is by Adesola Akinleye, and features in her book Dance, Architecture and Engineering (Published by Bloomsbury, p.87).
A film by Adesola Akinleye ©2021
Music: Jake Alexander
Image: Sugar Hill Housing, Adjaye Associates
Photographer: Ed Reeve
Poem: Adesola Akinleye
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