Pick It is one of an ongoing trail of creative outcomes from TF’s 2020 creative commissioning project, Devolution Evolution. During COVID, we supported our family of freelancers with funding and creative mentoring support to investigate their practice and ideas in new forms, new collaborations and new roles as lead artists. This devolving and expansion of creative responsibility has been an incredibly rich journey with many outcomes which continue to evolve You can read about the process here
Pick It is a 6 min short film and the result of a collaboration between Tangled Feet artists Shanez Pattni, Tunji Falana and Melaina Pecorini, who have written, produced and performed in the work. In the artists' own words:
"‘Pick It The pain and glory of Black hair. A celebration in all its forms; the struggles and triumphs, and the tender reality it comes with.
Synopsis
Grieving the death of her boyfriend, Tutu attempts to moves forward and forget the tragic events that had happened to him. For the first time since his passing, she dresses up, styles her big, curly hair and goes out. Waiting for a friend, she encounters a situation that forces her into the toilets to refresh her curls. Consumed with PTSD, embarrassment, shame and pride, Tutu is fighting to avoid those horrific events in her head that the afro pick conjures. ‘Pick it’ is an expression of how pride and beauty of Black hair, can often be followed by the danger of racial profiling, infused with celebration of Black Identity."
There will be three showings of the film at Kino, Bermondsey on Wednesday 19th October, at 7.45, 8 and 8.15pm, and we will be celebrating the films’ completion with a drink at the cinema bar. If you’d like to attend please RSVP to ateonaproductions@gmail.com so we have an idea of numbers. For more info on the film do follow @ateonaproductions on instagram.
Words by Kat Joyce.