4-17 October 2021
An Echo For My Father (2021)
An Echo For My Father (2021) is the first iteration in a series of three moving image works, exploring Jamila's relationship with her late father Russell Herman, a South African jazz musician who migrated to the UK in the 1980s and passed away when Jamila was three. Beginning with the micro experience of absence – what it means to have an absent parent and not have access to one side of your heritage – there is little visual representation of Russell within the first film. Instead, we are taken on a journey as Jamila processes the complex family history and emotions of not knowing her father, through a combination of documentary footage of Jamila making wall hangings in real time, listening to her father's music for the first time, and re-tracing journeys they took together around her childhood home.
An Echo For My Father is forthcoming and will be displayed at Hordaland Kunstsenter in October 2021, as part of a group exhibition curated by Amber Ablett.
An Echo for My Father is co-commissioned by Lighthouse through the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, part of Re-Imagine Europe. With support from Arts Council England and Hordaland Kunstsenter.
Echo For My Father does not have spoken dialogue, however captions and audio description are available for the full film.
Jamila Prowse is an artist, writer and researcher who works across moving image and textiles to consider methodologies for visualising mixed race identity and the lived experience of disability. She is drawn to stitch making and patchwork as a tactile form of processing complex family histories and mapping disability journeys, and moving image as a site of self-archiving and autoethnography. Jamila is part of an upcoming group show at Hordaland Kunstsenter, Norway (October 2021) and was studio residency artist at Gasworks from January to April 2021.
