Kadeem Oak: Pressed Flowers of the Empire
Screening Room: South Wing
Thu 06 Feb 2025
18.45 - 20.45
Part of Somerset House Studios
Artist and filmmaker Kadeem Oak explores the colonial legacies of Britain’s botanical collections.
Featuring: Black Audio Film Collective, Kew and Me, The Work of Kew Gardens, David Blandy, Lamin Fofana, Jonn Gale
Reflecting Oak’s ongoing research into ecology, migration and the Caribbean, the screening focuses on the botanical garden as a form of living archive. Oak invites critical conversation around Britain’s imperial institutions, drawing on material connected to Kew Gardens. The screening considers the mediation of monuments and archives and how their colonial logics might be disrupted through contemporary intervention.
The event begins with the Black Audio Film Collective’s 1983 Expeditions One: Signs of Empire. Collaging image, text and archival footage with concrete music in place of narration, the work departs from many of the techniques associated with traditional documentary-making. Following from this, Oak screens the 1944 short Kew and Me. Blending nature photography with light-hearted commentary, the film offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on the tranquillity of Kew Gardens, even while the second world war was taking place in the background. The 1971 film The Work of Kew Gardens will also be shown, focusing on the scientific research into agriculture and horticulture that took place at laboratories onsite. The programme concludes with David Blandy’s 2023 work Empire of the Swamp, following a lone figure wandering the mangrove swamps on the outskirts of Singapore.
As part of the event, Oak invites electronic music producer, DJ and artist Lamin Fofana to share a soundscape alongside the screening of Kew and Me. An audio essay by ethnobotanist Jonn Gale will look at hidden histories and human-plant relationships, presented simultaneously with The Work of Kew Gardens.
Still: Empire of the Swamp, David Blandy, 2023; Commissioned by John Hansard Gallery for Atomic Light - David Blandy