Space Afrika, the duo of Joshua Inyang and Joshua Tarelle, are longstanding friends who have been releasing music since 2014. Their work has built on a shared exploration of ambient sonics, dub and minimal techno, and field recordings – several made in Manchester, where they both grew up (Joshua Tarelle is now based in Berlin). Their releases Above The Concrete/Below The Concrete (2014) and Somewhere Decent To Live (2018) were spare, spacious yet intimate electronic abstractions, partly inspired by their observations of industrial landscapes and experiences of life in the North of England. They are NTS radio residents and contributors to New Neighborhoods, a project reimagining Ernest Hood’s Neighborhoods for the present day.  

Earlier this summer, Space Afrika released their most emotionally charged project to date, the mixtape hybtwibt? (Have You Been Through What I’ve Been Through?), recorded for broadcast on NTS radio. They collaged samples of news footage, soul records and personal conversations over a base of warm electronics to create a powerful time capsule of the Black experience. Sales of the mixtape raised funds for Black Lives Matter National Network, the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, National Bailout (NBO) and several other organisations supporting the fight for the equal rights of Black people. Over the last two years, they have been collaborating with the photographer, film maker and poet Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh, also from Manchester. Together, the three of them have created a new short film, Untitled (To Describe You) as a commission for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music festival, which will premiere on Friday 20 November, at 9pm.  They spoke with The Wire’s Deputy Editor Emily Bick about their work.    

I wanted to ask how you all got together to work on this project, and where the ideas for it came from.  

Joshua Tarelle: Myself and Josh met Tibyan on a night out. We went to an experimental club night at the White Hotel Club in Manchester, and just bumped into each other. Once we were acquainted, we were having creative talks from the get-go. I think over the course of like a year or two, we've developed this slow but strong building friendship, but continued to talk creatively and I think once we started to have opportunities that allowed us to showcase work on our side, we couldn't think of anyone else that we wanted to work with other than Tibyan. So we started to foster these conversations on how we can partner our sound and our ideas with her visual prowess.  

Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh: We've always kind of done it that way, some of the footage is already archived and then we synchronize it, but with this project it was like a brand new thing, with a little bit of footage where I filmed in Africa before.

Joshua Inyang: Basically we've been going on our own paths with development work in film, or in sonics, but I think as we've got closer we've noticed this affinity between our works – so we might just have a conversation and say, ‘OK, this is the sort of thing that we're looking to do, what kind of ideas do you have?’ Instantly anything that Tibyan and Josh will come back with is perfectly aligned or building on the original idea… I think this film was the first example of us having decided to work exclusively on something from scratch, and hopefully the outcome has been a good one.  

How did you develop a narrative or themes for your images in this film? There's so much that gets layered and collaged in the music, and you also have images that are stacked up to underscore some of the film’s emotional components. How did you work to build all of these things together?  

Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh: Ideas come from us talking about the scenes and then we go back and forth. [To Josh and Josh] I'd send you footage, and then you know what sounds go with it, and then we keep on going back and forth with the footage and the sound, instead of me doing all of the video and then you do all the sound and putting them together at the end.  

Joshua Tarelle: It's super hard to describe. I think we start with almost a guideline. So it might be an image or one or two sets of short clips that Tibyan is starting to build this visual world around, and almost immediately from that footage, especially some of the scenes that we can we can all relate to, that immediately trigger a certain emotional response. I think me and Josh... we can find that sonic connection quite easily, you know, we work with ambience and symbols and emotional sound. We will provide Tibyan with insight into what we feel sounds right for the image, and Tibyan will do the reverse essentially. It's kind of like building a house.  

In the film you contrast interiority with exteriority: you have shots of real internalised pain. You have a self harm sequence at the beginning with the knife, and then you have a sequence later on where you see pain held in characters’ bodies. You see the guy who's got all the tension in his back. But then you finally end it with this really lovely shot of this couple who are gently embracing but they're also very aware of the camera. You also mix this with so many other scenes that are external, people dancing at a rave, together in the street, people's memories of their family. What was the kind of process or the story that you saw linking all of these images?  

Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh: Everyone who is in the film, I know on a personal level. The guy in the film we see with the back, he's my best friend. The photographs are from my family archives, so they're from family members who have died and have had a big impression on me. And the couple at the end, they're friends as well. But before we filmed that scene, we all just came to my house and had a drink and I made them some food. Then we were talking about what he's been through, as a young Black male, and then he was like, ‘right, let's just film some stuff’. I was like,  ‘I know you're aware of the camera, and just be however you want to be.’ I didn't really give any direction or anything because I don't want things to be rehearsed or anything like that.  

So it all came together through their [experiences] as a Black person, and them having these subconscious thoughts. I wanted to see the kind of interpretation with the knife as well, at the start. That can come across as self-harm, or knife crime, and then I wanted the scenes to kind of interchange, from being how people just see things subconsciously, and how do you just go through that process as a young Black person.  

You also have images of a lot of light, and the candle images. And the poetry. Is that one of your poems that is read over the top of the music?  

Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh: Yeah – all of us, we don't just go down one avenue. They're all poems that I wrote. Over the past few months, I've been sending both Joshes different pieces of poetry, and also recorded conversations, because I do this thing with my friends and family members when they're not... when they don't notice, I record the conversations and then use them – which is a bit weird, putting that in some projects that I make because it's raw footage and sounds and stuff. So yeah, so we wanted to use different formats, ways of expressing ourselves.  

Joshua Inyang: I think that everything that Tibyan's described is what we immediately saw as quite captivating. In any one of her films, you can see a contrast of light and dark, happiness and sadness, but the way that's communicated as she's already said, is super personal. It's direct, it's close to home. I think – from that angle she has, and we have, is exactly the same. It's trying to describe this experience of being a Black person. With emphasis on direct personal experience or relationships, both positive and negative, without trying to be too overwhelming or unnecessary. I think having these contrasts allows you to be delicate with what you want to show and how you want to show it, but also because some of the scenes are quite abstract it allows a lot of room for interpretation.  

This feels like what you do with your mixtape, hybtwibt?, you use so many personal samples and field recordings and collaged documentation. It feels like you have that same kind of observation [in the film], and you're picking very specific emotional moments, and I'd like to know like how you go about finding and choosing those moments and piecing them together.  

Joshua Inyang: That [mixtape] was probably our most personal project to date because it was completely reflective of our own situation: personal loss, the burning injustice of George Floyd’s murder, and the fact that for many people, for Black people, when something like that is highlighted, those sort of emotions are prevalent and consistent  so, you know in the case of that album, we felt a much deeper connection sharing a project that was tied to these personal instances and in the process we were trying to communicate exactly what you're seeing, and accordingly spent hours and hours watching videos, listening to podcasts, films and all sorts. As soon as we come across something that relates to that way of thinking we have, we will rip that, we will translate it. We will write poetry from it. We build an archive of material for most of the time working on the project which is heavily invested in that, for whatever period of time.  Nothing else enters or leaves that world.  We change the context behind them, change the intonation, change the pitch. It's a constant thing, because we're always recording music. We're always collecting.  

Joshua Tarelle: The narrative and timing of the mixtape was key as it allowed us to address the painful reminder of reoccurring portrayals of the Black experience in the media. It gave us an opportunity to change that narrative, by highlighting the vulnerability and sensibilities of the body also extended to the experiences of Black Britishness. In terms of building an archive of sound, it’s probably the most genuine and personal work. So when constructing these ideas putting it into context came naturally, it’s something which could have only existed through this medium.

Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh: In the media, and through film, you don’t really see the vulnerable side of Black people, and I think us three, we have quite a gentle character. So that's kind of easy for us to portray, and important for us to show as well.    

Untitled (To Describe You) streams on Friday 20 November from 9pm GMT on the HCMF website. Space Afrika’s hybtwibt? is available on Bandcamp; read Joshua Minsoo Kim’s review in The Wire 438. New Neighborhoods is released by Freedom To Spend. Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh’s photography and films can be viewed on her website, and her Instagram is @viewtibyan.