It overlaps with her own family’s story (Taal’s father and Haley met several times during the latter’s research) and Taal explores the myth-making involved in these ‘back-to-Africa’ ideologies. Everyone gets in on the moment rather than thinking about the multiplicities.”Īlex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, and subsequent television adaptations, recast the region as “a site of return” in the wider African-American consciousness, Taal explains. Although it could be genuine, what worries me is that things go in cycles, and that means there’s going to be a moment where people think: ‘We’ve programmed all the Black people and people of colour’. “I am aware of this moment and what is being programmed, and there is this shift. “As a Black woman, I’m always suspicious as to why I get asked to do things!” she laughs. As a maker of short films exploring the psychic and social legacies of colonialism, she is acutely aware of the expectation for her to commission exclusively within moving image, or to be treated by white-run institutions as a portal for a new generation of Black artists. “There was an antagonism towards what I perceive to be a way of programming that thinks about an identity rather than a practice first,” Taal explains. The mix stands as testament to the variety of artists working in Scotland and to Taal’s desire to carve out space for them. Tako Taal photographed by Matthew Arthur Williams for ElephantĪ graduate of contemporary art practice at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, before serving on the committee of Glasgow’s Market Gallery for two years, Taal commissioned widely for What happens to desire… The resulting works included Chizu Anucha’s guitar and percussive piece, Sequoia Barnes’ textile installation, Thulani Rachia’s composition for four cellists and Matthew Arthur Williams’ dramatic landscape photography. The ten-screen installation combines readings of Douglass’s speeches with contemporary footage and retellings of the former slave’s encounters with family and fellow thinkers, focusing on his travels in Scotland between 18.Įncouraging Scots to re-examine their relationship with slavery, the film (currently on show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art) served as a point of departure for several projects at this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival, where Welsh-Gambian filmmaker Tako Taal was an associate artist.įor What happens to desire… Taal was invited to commission six new works exploring Lessons’ themes of resistance and representation, while paying special attention to the power of images (Douglass advocated social emancipation through what he called the “photographic self-representation” of African Americans).
British artist Isaac Julien’s 2019 film Lessons of the Hour follows the life and activism of the pioneering American abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
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