Julianknxx (b. Sierra Leone, 1987) creates work which merges his poetic practice with films and performance; he engages in a form of existential inquiry that at once seeks to find ways of expressing the ineffable realities of human experiences while examining the structures through which we live. In casting his own practice as a ‘living archive’ or a ‘history from below’,Julianknxx draws on West African traditions of oral history to reframe how we construct both local and global perspectives. He does this through a body of work that challenges fixed ideas of identity and unravels linear Western historical and socio-political narratives, attempting to reconcile how it feels to exist primarily in liminal spaces. In 2023 the Barbican, London staged his largest video installation to date Chorus in Rememory of Flight. A 180 Studios resident artist, Julianknxx has been collaborating with The Vinyl Factory since 2021, having commissioned his first video installation In Praise of Still Boys, which debuted at 180 Studios. The soundtrack was subsequently released on The Vinyl Factory record label. Also commissioned by The Vinyl Factory, the artist’s much-acclaimed video installation Breathe premiered at 180 Studios in 2021 as part of the immersive art exhibition LUX.
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Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.