Nielsen, Fanon, Vakili and Mezian...

Its been a busy summer due to my degree, after finishing my exams I returned to Denmark to participate in the launch event of an anti-racism and –discrimination campaign created by myself and Babak Vakili, supported by the Copenhagen Council - pictures and info can be found over here. It was a great experience and it was good to see the support the event and campaign has found around Copenhagen, of course, excluding the current government. Subsequently I returned to London to work on my MSc dissertation followed by some serious intoxication, which entailed a marked drop in my productivity levels in regards to art and updating this page (gracefully assisted by blogspots refusal to upload anything here for a couple of weeks). However, in between my attempts to reduce my liver to plywood I somehow found the time to engage in a couple of projects.

Amongst other things I am looking forward to a combined effort with Rasmus Nielsen: a number of coffees and stimulating/stimulated conversation led to the conclusion that it would be therapeutic and challenging to combine our heavily heterogeneous styles. The idea is that my clean lines and his messy, chaotic and colourful strokes of genius could combine into something that would make us both very uncomfortable and take us out of our comfort zones… I have sent my drawings of and I am looking forward to see the outcome. We are working in/on/around the broad theme of Africa in conjunction with an upcoming exhibition by Rasmus Nielsen (details to follow) and are specifically focusing on the Danish slavetrade in Ghana. To which I have also added a large portrait of revolutionary Frantz Fanon (sneak peek below). Whose books I have spent disproportionate amounts of time reading over the past couple of years.

Another friend and long-time inspiration, Babak Vakili, is the focus of a soon-to-be-finished documentary, from Soheil Hassan, which will hopefully figure in the CPH:DOX (Copenhagen documentary film festival). The documentary will continue the tradition from the albums of utilising black and white illustrations from myself, so I am back to the drawing board. Results of all these project will be published as they become available, are finished or abandoned. In the meantime, here is the artwork I did for the last EP.

The front cover

The man behind the music

The logo reading Vakili // Mezian (with the subtitle 'når alt kommer til alt')

The poster

The cd

Moreover I handwrote the lyrics for the inlay, which can be seen over here. More than making the artwork I also had the only feature on the album, on track number five “modmagt” (roughly translates as counterpower), where I have a longer rant about politics, which only seems more relevant these days – if you understand Danish you can listen to Vakili's lyrics and Mezian's beats at www.vakilisme.dk.