2 DEC
19:00 -22:00  

Free Entry
Food & Drink

TACO! Pavilion
1 Nest way
Cygnet Square
SE2 9FA

5mins from Abbeywood StationFull Disabled Access

Action! Screenings presents artist films by Languid Hands, Amanda Egbe and Rastko Novaković, and the Ceddo Film and Video Workshop that explore community led political actions in the struggle for social justice, politcal & class representation, and racial equality.  These films are presented alongside a selection of documentaries, news clips and interviews that present historic instances of struggle, power and community action from the 80’s and 90’s.  

The Action! Screenings event is curated by Holly Graham and forms a part of her public research project - Action! - that explores anti-racist community led action work in Thamesmead and the surrounding area in the early 1990s.  This period saw a rise in racial tensions within the area but there is currently minimal documentation reflecting these rifts and the important community led responses to counteract them.

Holly’s research will culminate in a series of artworks that explore ways to memoralise collective action and community legacy.



Where were you in 1992?: The Rumours of War (2018)
Amanda Egbe and Rastko Novaković

Where were you in 92'? “We were fighting racism and fascism on the streets of London. We were trying to resist and survive the violent ethno-nationalism in Yugoslavia”.

Moving between the personal and the collective, Where were you in 1992? is visual and textual exploration of a turbulent period in European History that saw a rise in Ethno-Nationalist politics both in the UK and across Europe. Using materials and interviews collected by the artists and now held in the May Day Rooms archives, the film collages  collected film clips, materials, images and sound tracks to present a picture of the time and the political struggle of groups against rightwing reactionary politics and the breaking down of social and political stability.


The People’s Account (1985)
Ceddo Film and Video Workshop

The People’s Account is a documentary filmed following the death of Cynthia Jarret and Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham.  Commissioned by Chanel 4, the film employs a straight documentry style interspersed at times with more playful montages and music. It blends voice over narrative, music, still images, news-clips and documentary footage to represent the Black communities’ fight against police brutality and racism. The documentry was controverisally banned from being shown on TV following complaints by the Goverment, the Police and the Righwing media to the Independent Broadcasting Authority.  The film is shown courtesy of the London Video Community Archive. 


Towards A Black Testimony: Prayer/Protest/Peace (2019)
Languid Hands

Towards a Black Testimony: Prayer, Protest, Peace examines Black Testimony as obscured, ignored and undermined. Drawing on archival imagery, Black geographies, and the dying declarations of Black Martyrs, it explores the complexities of truth, empathy, justice, the law, life and death for the Black Mass.

The work borrows its subtitle – Prayer, Protest, Peace - from the third track on jazz drummer and composer Max Roach's 1960 album ‘We Insist! Freedom Now Suite’, using this composition as the underlying structure for the film, while the film script draws from a variety of well and lesser known black texts . The film was commissioned by Jerwood Arts, and forms part of a the ongoing project Towards A Black Testimony  by artist and curatorial duo Rabz Lansiquot  and Imani Robinson.




Amanda Egbe is an artist, filmmaker and Lecturer in Media Production at the University of West of England. Rastko Novaković is an artist working with the moving image, active in trade union and housing struggles. Together, over the past 18 years, they have created short and feature films, participatory videos, web-based projects, expanded cinema and a site-specific panorama.


The Ceddo Film and Video Workshop was in the early 1980’s with support from the GLC and Chanel 4.  The groups work was characterised by a radical left-wing critique of British society’s treatment of Black British people, and an interest in African and Caribbean politics and history. The group comprised of 10 Black British and diaspora multimedia film makers, and was one of several groups which formed at this time in responce to socio-political tensions. Footage filmed by Ceddo was used by the Black Audio Film Collective in the more widley known film Handsworth Songs (1985).


Languid Hands is a London-based artistic and curatorial collaboration between DJ, filmmaker and curator Rabz Lansiquot and writer, facilitator and live art practitioner Imani Robinson. Their work is informed by ongoing explorations in Black and queer studies, Black creative practice, Black liberatory praxis and queer methodologies.  They have exhibited widely inlcuding at Jerwood Arts Space, Stroom Den Haag (Netherlands), Narrative Projects (London) and undertaken curatorial residencies at Raven Row, and Cubitt. 


Holly Graham is a London-based artist, working predominantly with print and audio. Much of her work looks at ways in which memory and narrative shape collective histories. Holly holds a BFA from Oxford University and an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art. Recent solo projects include commissions with; Skelf, Online (2022); TACO!, London (2021-22); Robert Young Antiques, London (2021); Gaada, Shetland (2020); Goldsmiths CCA, Online (2020); and Southwark Park Galleries, London (2020). Holly is an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London; and is Co-Founder of Cypher BILLBOARD, London. She has recently been awarded a scholarship at the British School in Rome for 2023.

Images: Marchers for Rolan Adams, 1991, courtesy of Perou / Film stills: Handsworth Songs - courtesy of BAFC / Towards a Black Testimony: Prayer, Protest, Peace- courtesy of Languid Hands / Where were you in 1992?: The Rumours of War - courtesy of Amanda Egbe and Rastko Novaković