John Akomfrah Research Fellowship in association with RCA BLK

3 December 2024

The Royal College of Art's Association of Black Student Alumni and Friends (RCA BLK) and Lisson Gallery are pleased to announce the first recipients of the John Akomfrah Research Fellowship. Artists Canaan J Brown and Emily Alice Mitchell have both been selected to receive an award of £3,500 for a three-month fixed-term research project, as well as expenses towards a trip to Venice to see the final days of the Biennale and the British Pavilion installation, Listening All Night to the Rain.

Judged by a panel including: independent writer, curator Ekow Eshun; the chair of RCA BLK and artist, Emily Moore; Lisson Gallery’s Content Director Ossian Ward, this Fellowship encourages individual and expansive responses to the work of John Akomfrah and its related themes, in advance of a major monograph to be published on the artist. The successful proposals were chosen for their ambition and sensitivity, with a view to expanding their own practices in film, video, performance, writing and image-making, with special reference to the archive, the sublime and the reappraisal of narrative.

Canaan J Brown is a London-based Black British artist and designer. Brown is a recent graduate from the Royal College of Art, where he won a Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship to study for a master’s degree in Contemporary Art Practice. He has expanded and refined his approach to writing, filmmaking and broader interdisciplinary practices, creating art that critically engages with social histories and cultural experiences through a contemporary lens. He was shortlisted for the 9th edition of the International Awards for Art Criticism and was nominated for the New Blood Art Prize.

Emily Alice Mitchell is a multidisciplinary artist of mixed Caribbean and Scottish heritage, who was born and works in London. After graduating from Lancaster University in 2023, she completed an MA in Contemporary Art Practice at RCA, supported by the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship. Combining moving image, photography, printmaking and sculpture, Mitchell is working towards the decolonisation of archival practices and ways in which traditional methods can be adapted to serve new purposes of understanding grief and transgenerational trauma within diasporic communities.

RCA BLK was founded in 2020 as an association central to the Black student experience both in- and outside of the RCA, establishing networks, peer-to-peer mentoring and support for past, present and future alumni.

Image credit: Emily Alice Mitchell, They who swim within the pilgrimage of my blood, 2024, Two-channel moving image installation, 44 minutes 17 seconds, Installation view at the RCA 2024 Graduate Show