Towards A Black Testimony, Part 4: Landmass

MelaninKids DJ mix was curated by Sára Jasim and inspired by Black Joy Archives by Jordss and organised by Zuzana Jakalová and Hana Janečková as part of Towards a Black Testimony programme.

Collaboration with Display facilitated and co-ordinated by: Zeynab Gueye.

MelaninKids, founded by Samira Jasim, is a platform and a community for people of Black heritage born or living in Czechia or Slovakia. Their backgrounds are from all parts of the world, including Africa, the Middle East, South America and the Caribbean, the United States and many other. One of the MelaninKids core activities is organising meet ups and social gatherings where they network, share stories, eat, drink, dance, build friendships and create memories for life.

Music and dance have been an important uniting force of the MelaninKids community since its first social event in March 2018. The MelaninKids DJ set brings together the many different strands and genres of Black music that the community listens to. This mix is a refreshing insight into each person’s music taste. It combines voice and music recordings and explores the themes of joy, shared struggle, identity, sense of belonging and nostalgia.

Sára Jasim was born in Prague and currently lives in London where she graduated from Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS, University of London. Outside of her day job as a legal information professional, Sára is a DJ, performing under the name of 'Rara'. Her passion for all things music and delivering energy at events led her to co-creation of Leg Work, a fresh club night in Prague which fuses a wide range of sounds from across Africa and the global Black Diaspora.

Towards a Black Testimony is an ongoing project by the London-based artistic and curatorial duo Languid Hands. Using the film "Towards A Black Testimony: Prayer/Protest/Peace" as both artwork and curatorial note, the project brings together artists, thinkers, writers, listeners and speakers to respond to the ideas in the film and to explore the complexity of Black testimony through their own experience. The four part iteration at Display, Prague engages the practice of Black artists in the Czech Republic as a response to the film.