For Art Night 2021 Alberta Whittle presented a major new commission taking the voice of the River Thames as its starting point. Working with science fiction writer Ama Josephine Budge, the commission looks at colonial histories, police brutality and imagined futures offering time and space for healing and reset.

The work manifests as a new film, HOLDING THE LINE: a refrain in two parts and as a performance DIS- A lesson in Reversal or Unlearning which took place at Two Temple Place on 9th July.

The performance incorporated sound and movement focusing on ideas of rebellion, love and the oceans that connect us. Poetry and writing formed the spine of the work including a specially commissioned text by Ama Josephine Budge who performs in the piece alongside Whittle and five other womxn performers, Ama Josephine Budge, Sekai Machache, Mele Broomes, Zethu Maseko, and Christian Noelle Charles with a score composed by Yves B. Golden and Richie Carey.

The performance aimed to excavate history as a communal action and responsibility, in order to develop new ways to think about congregation, contestation, remembering the dead and belonging.