Kwame Kwei-Armah (2020)

Kwei-Armah, Kwame
(2020)

Instructions to anyone that cares to read or listen.

Walk around the area you live- or if you can’t find one there, go into the centre of your city and find a statue.

Find one that means something to you. You can hate what s/he represents, or you can love what it is they conjure in you. It doesn’t matter.

Sit with the statue for a few deep moments.

Then begin to converse with the person that statue pertains to manifest.

Tell them about the last three months of your life. Of lockdown, of Covid, of BLM, of your finances, your emotions, your fears for today and tomorrow. If at this moment you feel loved. Safe. Looked after.

Record that conversation on your phone or other such devise.

Then go home and write a two-person scene. You and the statue. The statue can come to life and speak to you with the hindsight of history. Or it can only speak from the moment in time it was cast in stone.

Discover as you are attempting to write this scene if the two of you can indeed converse. And if you cannot. Write that too.

When you’ve finished, if you feel like it, find a friend to act the scene out with you and even possibly shoot it on location. Either having the statue in frame or not.

Look back at the recording. And access for yourself if the statue has come to life. If it has not, maybe it should not be there!