As you move through Julianknxx’s exhibition ‘Chorus in Rememory of Flight’ at the Barbican, a series of intoxicating film installations draw you through The Curve gallery under a cloak of darkness. Each one interweaves personal stories of the African diaspora across Europe, gradually building into a meditative piece using choral song as a vehicle for resistance, a metaphor for community and an ode to love, both near and far.

Co-commissioned by the Barbican and WePresent, the arts platform of WeTransfer, in partnership with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the artist’s first institutional show took him to seven port cities – Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, London, Marseille, Barcelona and Lisbon – over the course of a year where he collaborated with Black choirs as well as musicians, scholars and performers. Together they revealed myriad expressions of cultural memory that blur time and place. The local becomes global and multiple histories collide as these voices become one.

‘Chorus in Rememory of Flight’ is the latest fruits of what Julianknxx calls his “listening practice” that pays homage to West African oral histories as a means of passing forward knowledge. As such, his is a tender and caring touch allowing each collaborator to tell, sing, move or breathe out their own offering into this embracing work. All the while, the choirs bring us back to centre with the refrain ‘We are what’s left of us’.

The Sierra Leonean artist’s early experiences of leaving Freetown as a child due to civil war and eventually landing in London as a teenager have gone on to shape his artistic voice. Rooted in poetry, film and performance, he challenges dominant perspectives while digging into notions of home, identity and Blackness. His piece ‘In Praise of Still Boys’ (2020) is currently on show at Tate Modern and ‘Black Room’ was just acquired by the Arts Council Collection at Frieze London 2023. Meanwhile ‘Black Corporeal: Breathing By Numbers’ (2021) – another WePresent commission – was originally shown at 180 Studios (where he’s a resident artist) and continues to evolve as a living piece.

Nataal has teamed up with WePresent to share the full story of ‘Chorus in Rememory of Flight’. The WePresent editorial sees writer Precious Adesina sit down with Julianknxx to discuss this moving cinematic archive of Black life. ‘Knox hopes his work will serve as a “living archive with a trail” for alternative histories that people have yet to explore,’ she writes. This interview is framed by stories from all seven cities, by Debo Amon, Abigail Nkaly and Ethel-Ruth Tawe, that dig deeper into the inspirations and encounters that have built the heart and soul of the Barbican show. Read on…