Performance: Towards a Black Testimony with Languid Hands, Christopher Kirubi, Chloe Filani, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Derica Shields

34 minutes

For Jerwood Lates Languid Hands presented an intimate, drop-in programme of listening, discussion, performance and reading responding to their work Towards a Black Testimony: Prayer, Protest, Peace commissioned for Jerwood Collaborate!.

This video documents the programme of readings and performance featuring guests Christopher Kirubi, Chloe Filani, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Derica Shields.


Languid Hands

Languid Hands is a London-based artistic and curatorial collaboration between DJ, filmmaker and programmer Rabz Lansiquot, and writer, facilitator and live art practitioner Imani Robinson. They began collaborating together in 2015, through their work with the collective sorryyoufeeluncomfortable (SYFU), informed by ongoing explorations in black and queer studies, black creative practice, black liberatory praxis and queer methodologies. @languidhands

Christopher Kirubi

Christopher is a London-based poet and artist who uses the mutability and promiscuity of images, objects and text to negotiate the limits of sexuality, gender, race and desire.

Chloe Filani

Chloe is a Black feminist, Poet, Performance artist, public Speaker and workshop facilitator. Her poetry works on her lived experiences and the broader themes of identity and power structures. Dealing with ideas of precolonial African trans femme ancestors in poetic story telling.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

Danielle is an artist working predominantly in animation, sound and performance to communicate their experience as a Black Trans person. Their practice focuses on recording the lives of Black Trans people, intertwining lived experience with fiction to imaginatively retell Trans stories. Spurred on by a desire to meet buried bodies like theirs, their work dreams of a Trans archive where Black Trans people could share their experiences. daniellebrathwaiteshirley.com

Derica Shields

Derica is a writer, researcher and cultural worker from London. As part of a 2017 Triple Canopy commission, she is completing a multi-format oral history project centering on Black people’s accounts of the UK welfare state. Her book project commissioned by Hannah Black is forthcoming from Book Works in 2020. dericashields.com