Sunday’s Best (2017) is a contemplative short film that explores faith and history as a personal and collective experience. Presented as a largescale single-screen projection, it begins with the pulsating soundtrack of an African church service accompanied by a minute-long visual cacophony of historical and contemporary imagery drawn from archival, history-book and television sources. Fleeting and mesmerising, these images are barely decipherable, but last long enough to give the impression of seismic and even catastrophic events that have befallen and continue to shape the black diaspora: the Atlantic slave trade, the scramble for Africa, colonial rule, forced migration, xenophobia, the aftermath of police brutality.
As sound and visuals fade, a vivid closeup of a young boy fills the screen, head bowed and eyes closed in deep contemplation. Organ music, reminiscent of the beginning of a religious service, here introduces our narrator. He recalls learning about religious figures and deities, and wearing his Sunday best for church. He also recounts the three types of imagery that could be found in his childhood home: historic Ghanaian freedom fighters, family members and images of Jesus, “the only white person important enough to share a place on my family’s walls”. He continues, “I always wondered why someone from Bethlehem was as white as chalk.” This candour is purposeful, contrasting with the subtle interplay of image and sound, space and scale…
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Excerpt from 'Larry Achiampong: Sunday’s Best', ArtReview, March 2018
View more information at: https://artreview.com/reviews/ar_march_2018_review_larry_achiampong/