God Bless the Child (15*) + Conversation with Christoper Harris and Kodwo Eshun
Experiments in Film
A multi-media event that delves into Christopher Harris' first autobiographical project; comparing the US care system to life in Senegal, blending personal history, archive, and 16mm footage.
Drawing on his experience in foster care, Harris weaves together photographs and official records with film material from Senegal. He examines the structures of social welfare and child services along with Black childhood in the US.
Within the wider historical context of the transatlantic slave trade, especially the role that the French Catholic Church played in colonialism, Harris' hometown of St. Louis, Missouri and Saint-Louis, Senegal appear as parallel spaces shaped by shared histories.
Harris will be joined by Kodwo Eshun to explore the themes of his work and discuss the archival materials that are the foundation of his upcoming experimental essay film: records from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, family photographs, his childhood adoption listing.
An open conversation and audience Q&A offer a chance to engage directly with Harris.
This event has been developed in collaboration with Valentine Umansky and the Tate Modern.
Special thanks to Christopher Harris and Kodwo Eshun.
The screening is co-presented with Tate Film. A second programme, featuring Chris Harris's earliest and most recent films, will be held on 28 May in the Starr Cinema at Tate Modern.
Ticket prices
£10.40
Students £11
Unwaged £11
Over 60s £11
Under 18s £6
Wheelchair spaces, free companion seats may now be booked online.
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Booking fees
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Biographies
Christopher Harris makes films and video installations that read African American historiography through the poetics and aesthetics of experimental cinema. Often drawing on archival sounds and images, his work features staged re-enactments, hand-cranked cameras, rear-projection, close-focus cinematography, re-photography, photochemical manipulations, and screen captured video, among other strategies. Like his production techniques, his influences—among them Black literature, various strains of North American avant-garde film, and most significantly, all forms of Black music—are eclectic. Working through incongruity and slippages, between sound and image, between past, present and future, and between absence and presence, his films, like the music from which they take inspiration, embody the existential complexities and paradoxes of racialized identity in the U.S. His films have appeared widely at festivals, museums and cinematheques, including solo screenings at the 2024 Whitney Biennial, the Museum of Modern Art, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Locarno Film Festival, and Arsenal Berlin, among many others. Harris is Professor of Visual Arts at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts.
Kodwo Eshun is a filmmaker, theorist and artist, based in London. He is Lecturer in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths, Department of Visual Cultures, University of London and Professor of Visual Arts at Haut Ecole d’Art et Design, Genève.
In 2002, he founded The Otolith Group together with Anjalika Sagar. Their essayistic approach reflects on the perception and nature of documentary practice through films, texts and activities related to media archives. From Cold War ideology to global capitalism processes, recent history appears as fragments of a personal diary which, in turn, could be fiction.
The Otolith Group has grown as a collaborative platform that seeks to rethink the dynamics of cultural production under conditions of accelerated, unstable and precarious global conditions. Films, art works, exhibitions, curated programmes, and publications are collectively conceived, and research forms the basis of the practice. The Otolith Group were nominated for The Turner Prize in 2010 and have exhibited internationally since 2003.
Explore our Concrete Garden this spring
Cinema 2
Location
Barbican Cinema 2 & 3 are located on Beech Street, a short walk from the Barbican’s Silk Street entrance. From Silk Street, you’ll see a zebra crossing that will take you across the road to the venue.
Address
Beech Street
London
EC2Y 8DS
Public transport
The Barbican is widely accessible by bus, tube, train and by foot or bicycle. Plan your journey and find more route information in ‘Your Visit’ or book your car parking space in advance.
We’ve plenty of places for you to relax and replenish, from coffee and cake to wood-fired pizzas and full pre-theatre menus
Access
Cinemas 2 & 3 are located at Beech Street, a short walk from the Barbican Centre’s main Silk Street entrance. There are a couple of steep, dropped kerbs and an incline to negotiate between the two sites. Level access from Beech Street.
Mobility
Each auditorium has three permanent wheelchair spaces (two in the third row and one in the front row) and 153 fixed seats with capacity for a further three spaces in the front row. Access to each auditorium is up a ramp. There are also a number of seats with step-free access.
Assistance dogs
Assistance dogs may be taken into the cinema – please tell us when booking to ensure your seat has enough space. If you prefer, you may leave your dog with a member of the foyer staff during the performance.
Hearing facility
An infrared system for hard of hearing customers is provided in each auditorium; headsets or neck loops can be collected from foyer staff. The ticket desk counter is fitted with an induction loop.
For more access information, please visit our Accessibility section.
