Description: Compost Archive

Compost Archive (2016) 6’59’’, colour, sound

“Luta ca caba inda” [The Struggle Is Not Over Yet] is the title of a documentary film on West Africa’s Guinea-Bissau’s post-independence, left unfinished in 1980. It has been archived alongside dense material holdings of a decade of militant cinema and struggle between 1963 and 1975—the year the country’s independence was internationally recognised—at the Instituto Nacional de Cinema e Audiovisual (INCA) in Bissau. From 2012-2015, artist Filipa César and curator Tobias Hering embarked on a project to affordably digitalise the entire archive in an unrestored state. Since, the “Luta ca caba inda” project holds public events dedicated to activating the archive. Upon inhabitants’ invitation, this short video by César with Louis Henderson came out of 4th Encounters “Beyond History: Luta ca caba inda – An Archive in Relation”, a conference in Portugal in 2015. ‘Compost Archive’ extends Henderson’s conference contribution, to propose a navigation through the materiality of the footage, sounds and accessing apparatuses, with excerpts from participant’s statements.

INHABITANTS