Is My Living in Vain examines the black church’s role in social and political change

Gasworks presents a new film commission by Lewisham film-maker and artist Ufuoma Essi.

Is My Living in Vain is a meditation on the continuing history and emancipatory potential of the black church as a space of belonging, affirmation and community organising.

The film makes connections across time and geography, from South London to West Philadephia, two locations intimately bound to the artist’s biography.

Following a tangled thread of personal and collective memories, Essi’s film explores the church’s contribution to a black radical tradition.

Is My Living in Vain weaves together footage shot on location in the two cities, newly recorded oral histories and archive material from both sides of the Atlantic.

It interrogates the church’s role in social and political change while celebrating the performativity of black communities within informal spaces of congregation – with its title taken from one of the most celebrated hits of the pioneering gospel group The Clark Sisters.

Informed by black feminist epistemology, Essi’s work examines history as an embodied experience.

She makes abundant use of archival footage intercut with heterogeneous materials including homemade VHS tapes, YouTube clips and analogue 16mm footage shot on location.

It is through an embodied exploration of archives that her work aims to disrupt the silences and gaps in the dominant visual narratives.

The film will be presented as part of an immersive installation which is inspired by the interiors of storefront churches in West Philadelphia, and explores the parallels between places of worship and the cinema as sites of shared communal experience.

Pictured: A still from the film – Picture: Ufuoma Essi