First World Order: Works by Ilana Harris-Babou, Ulysses Jenkins, Philip Mallory Jones, and Anthony Ramos
On May 4th, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) and Triple Canopy were pleased to co-host First World Order, a screening of works by Ilana Harris-Babou and Ulysses Jenkins followed by a discussion between Harris-Babou and writer Yasmina Price. If you missed it, watch the program and discussion here.
Alongside the event, EAI presents an online program of works including Ilana Harris-Babou's Leaf of Life and Ulysses Jenkins' complete The Video Griots Trilogy (1989-91), Philip Mallory Jones's First World Order, and Anthony Ramos's Nor Was This All By Any Means (1978), available through May 25th. Through rituals, symbols, and lore—some hearkening to tradition and some concocted for the camera—these artists seek alternatives to the forms of racial and cultural identity and expression that have been foisted on them (and that characterized the mass media of the time). Rather than speak as subjects of the nations that claim them, Jenkins, Ramos, and Jones situate themselves as between cultures, places, and epochs, which they imagine as the basis for unity between those who have been made to feel like exiles at home
Ilana Harris-Babou, Leaf of Life
2022, 17:41 min, color, sound
The viewing period for this work has ended.
The herbalist Alfredo Bowman, popularly known as Dr. Sebi, often asked, “What were we eating before we were taken from Africa, before there was an invasion by the man from Europe?” Dr. Sebi’s answer came in the form of a diet that eschewed “Caucasian food” and emphasized fruits, vegetables, and pulses, which he promoted as complementing “the African gene structure.” Drawing on Black nationalist movements as well as Hippocrates and the Old Testament, the quietly charismatic (and unlicensed) practitioner traced all diseases afflicting Black people to their displacement from Africa through the transatlantic slave trade. Before dying in 2016, he had attracted a global following that included Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, Michael Jackson, and Nipsey Hussle, as well as numerous charges of fraud for claiming that his treatments cured illnesses as various as herpes, HIV, and diabetes. In her video Leaf of Life (2022), the artist Ilana Harris-Babou considers Dr. Sebi’s amalgamation of tradition, myth, and persona—which enabled him to advance an identity rooted in the bodies of Black people around the world—and asks how distrust of American institutions contributes to the appeal of his message.
Ulysses Jenkins, The Video Griots Trilogy
1989-1991, 36:20 min, color, sound
The viewing period for this work has ended.
In this trilogy, Jenkins creates a series of video meditations on history and culture. Using archival footage, photographs, image processing, and an elegiac soundtrack, he pulls together diverse strands of thought to construct an "other" history. Self-Divination speaks poetically about origins and the realities of the African diaspora. Mutual Native Duplex is a video essay on the mutual alliances between Native and African Americans which celebrates the "neo-American model" of inter-cultural cooperation that grew out of these encounters. The Nomadics takes a sweeping overview of peoples from across the world and develops an intuitive and aesthetic sense of history which can posit a global identity amongst people of color.
Philip Mallory Jones, First World Order
1994, 24 min, color, sound
The viewing period for this work has ended.
In this tapestry of images and sounds, fragments gleaned from more than three years of research on four continents illuminate an ancient community of perceptions, practices, and values. Originating in Africa, thousands of years before Egypt, remnants of the First World Order survive today as codes and symbolic language in the arts and life of many people. Weaving verité sequences of arts and cultural expression with interviews and animation, Jones evokes the textured relationships of culturally and ethnically distinct and disparate peoples.
Anthony Ramos, Nor Was This All By Any Means
1978, 24 min, color, sound
The viewing period for this work has ended.
In this densely layered work, Ramos explores his cultural and personal heritage through a collage of recorded and appropriated footage. Juxtaposing African and American landscapes, personal and media imagery, he traces a spiritual and physical journey that moves from from Harlem to Goree Island, Cape Verde and Tanzania. In a forceful portrait of cultural disenfranchisement that refers to the African diaspora and the bitter harvest sown by slavery, he challenges the veracity of mass cultural images of African-Americans.
2021-2022 marks the 50th anniversary of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), one of the world’s leading resources for video and media art. As we celebrate this milestone, EAI will present a rotating series of video features from across our collection and publish a series of oral histories with key figures. To keep up to date on our anniversary activities, please sign up for our e-mail mailing list.