For those of you who are working on a rapid response to The Stuart Hall Project (or who are thinking of writing a final paper on it) there’s a just posted interview with Akomfrah in the indispensable Los Angeles Review of Books. Check it here.
Asked about Hall’s influence, here’s what Akomfrah says,
The first thing to say was this wonderful man was a friend. He was initially a mentor, certainly a charismatic example and a figure who embodied all manner of possibilities for my generation. Many of us of that ’80s generation of artists and activists gravitated toward Stuart because he seemed to possess this maverick combination of possibilities that we recognized in ourselves. He was a figure of multiple migrations and crossovers and these seemed to say something directly to our then-present condition. And what’s even more important, since he uncannily seemed to sense this — the very textures of his life spoke to our experience. And this “standing” and “position” of necessity that he had for us is something he appreciated and responded to with remarkable generosity of his time, life, and ideas.