Artist animators announced for Flamin Animations 2023

31 July 2023 // Women in Animation

Skwigly

Animation Magazine

Four artist animators have been selected for the latest round of Film London’s FLAMIN Animations, supported by Arts Council England. Now in its third year, the commissioning programme supports early career Black-identifying* artist animators living in the UK to produce a new work.

L-R: Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume, Gisela Mulindwa, Folake Fadojutimi, Duncan Senkumba (Image courtesy of Film London)

The selected FLAMIN Animators 2023-24 are:

Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume is a freelance animator based in London, currently working as a producer at an independent animation studio. Her animation work is typically a blend of digitally drawn 2D animation, traditional paper animation and analogue techniques, and draws thematic and aesthetic influences principally from her West African (Ivorian) heritage. African wood carvings, bronze sculptures and ceremonial relics, the textures and colours of textiles and traditional dress are all foundational sources that have informed the evolving direction of her practice.

Djedje-Fisher-Azoume recently developed a short animated film as part of RAFTS (2023), a collaboration with the Turner Prize shortlisted artist Rory Pilgrim. In 2021, she was commissioned by the V&A to produce a new animation as part of the Alice: Curioser and Curioser exhibition.

Inspired by research on my work ‘Untitled’ my project will explore themes of femininity in Ivorian tribal fertility carvings and sculptures. Reinterpreted through both modern and traditional methods, I would like to use a range of approaches, including charcoal, screen printing and linocut. The work will incorporate references to traditional bronze statues by drawing and scratching into copper sheets.

Folake Fadojutimi is an artist and animator based in East London, who creates meticulously hand-drawn digital worlds that explore urgent issues around the effect of media and technology on our contemporary world. During her Master’s degree in Digital Media Image Making at Goldsmiths University of London, she explored the cultural history of ‘rubber-hose’ animation and its entanglement with the exploitation and misrepresentation of the Black body.

This research informed her short film Paper Boat on the Orchestra’s Plight (2022). Her most recent work, Hive Mentality (2022), is a dystopian exploration of the ways by which social media has constricted the possibility of independent thought.

Entitled Feed me and I will be the better you, this animation will explore AI and the fear of its potential, the fear of not knowing and yet wanting to know more of what AI is capable of. Despite all, the progression of development into AI continues.

Gisela Mulindwa is an experimental animator and visual artist based in London. A graduate in Animation from Edinburgh College of Art, her practice takes an experimental mixed media approach to animation, working between stop motion, collage, paint and analogue film to create dense and complex textures. She challenges social expectations around identity to unravel the relationship between self, other and the unconscious, revealing a world shaped by magical realism.

Mulindwa’s work has screened at festivals including the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Tricky Women Animation Festival, and she was commissioned to produce animations for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021 and 2022. Committed to challenging audience expectations of what animation can be, her work as an animator has led to theatre commissions, developing moving image alongside theatre design in projects at Theatre Peckham and Vault Festival.

Using real conversation taken from interviews with local people, this experimental animated documentary will explore how everyday spaces affect our subconscious. Growing up and living in South London, I have seen upsetting and fast changes. The people who built these communities have been pushed out and ignored. Working experimentally, I would like to use animation as a way to create a constantly changing space, while we go on a journey through these different stories.

Duncan Senkumba is inspired by the African art he grew up with in the urban environment of Kampala. His work is characterised by fluid motion, with silhouettes that morph and shift through colourful landscapes. His work documents what he describes as ‘the African experience’ to explore identity, family and cultural taboos. Since graduating with an MA in Animation from the Royal College of Art, his work has been shown at festivals including the London International Animation Festival, the Africa International Film Festival (Lagos) and Encounters Festival (Bristol), and he has received commercial commissions from clients including the BBC and the University of California Press.

This short film dives into what it means to be part of a diaspora. It will explore the conflicting feelings of peace and disconnect when you visit your homeland; not knowing your own language; and the experience of being caught between two cultures.

FLAMIN Animations is run by Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN), which supports artist animators as they develop a career working with the moving image. The programme responds to the underrepresentation of Black artists within the art, film, and animation industries, and is part of Film London’s commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion.

Previous FLAMIN Animators have gone on to showcase their work on the Piccadilly Lights as part of the CIRCA x Dazed Class of 2022, in Frankfurt at the B3 Biennial of the Moving Image, at the London International Animation Festival and at London’s Picturehouse Central and Rich Mix as part of the New Black Film Collective’s TNB XPO.

Lamide Olusegun, FLAMIN Animator 2022, said:

Being on the FLAMIN Animations programme helped me push myself to produce my most ambitious film to date, encouraging me to experiment with my animation style and push my work to the next level. It was also fantastic to be able to network with other creatives/animators who took an interest in my work. The experience has helped me to forge new connections and find work in Film and TV.

As well as receiving £3,000 to create a new 2-3 minute animation, each artist will be offered bespoke mentoring and development support from Film London’s FLAMIN Team and animation professionals in the art and film industries.

Adrian Wootton, OBE, Chief Executive of Film London and the British Film Commission, said:

We’re thrilled to announce the animators selected for this year’s FLAMIN Animations programme. Chosen from a high calibre of applications, each artist has a distinctive approach to the medium, including digital drawing, stop motion, and hand painted frame-by-frame animation. We’re excited to see this year’s commissions come to life and hope that FLAMIN Animations will continue to support Black practitioners within the art, film and animation industries by creating a network of emerging artists and professionals.’

*Artists and Creatives of African or Caribbean Descent, Black African, Caribbean, Afro-Latinx and African-American heritage, including those of mixed-Black heritage who identify as such.

To find out more about FLAMIN Animations, visit filmlondon.org.uk/flamin/flamin-animations