Derick Armah

Short Cuts
Surveillence

"Outside, on any given day, your skin might get hot from the suspicious glares of passers-by, or from cruising police cars, or from the bug-eyed security cameras that are planted on every building within sight".

London is one of the most surveilled cities in the world and for young Black men, the feeling of being watched, of hyper-visibility, can be especially uncomfortable. This audio essay captures the simple yet contested experience of walking on familiar streets, through spoken word and a cinematic soundscape.

Produced for Short Cuts, BBC Radio 4’s series of experimental short-form documentary stories, ‘Surveillence’ was conceived immediately after the end of 2021’s lockdown: a time when moving through public spaces was a particularly charged act, even without accounting for racial inequalities and exclusions.

Fragments of memory, real time recollections, archival recordings and everyday social observations combine for a poetic account of these exclusions, from childhood to young adulthood, written by me, Derick Armah, and produced and sound designed by Ivan d’Avoine and I.

It was commissioned by Falling Tree Productions for ‘The Hidden Part’ episode, a collection of audio stories about what remains hidden from view.

Listen here.

Derick Armah

Short Cuts Surveillence

Short Cuts
Surveillence