Ain't Got No Fear

In the making of Ain’t Got No Fear artist Mikhail Karikis worked for almost a year with a group of 11 to 13-year-old boys from the Isle of Grain – a stark and sparsely populated Kentish marshland dominated by industry, military ruins and rare wetland birds.

In response to the isolation of their village and the lack of space where teenagers can gather, in the last few years, kids had been organising youth raves in a local wood, recently raided by the police.

Using as their beat the persistent crushing noises of the demolition of a power plant next to their village, the boys of Grain sing a rap song they wrote about their lives, recalling memories of being younger and imagining their old age and future.

The film oscillates between a music video and observational footage, glimpsing into teenage experiences on the edges of urbanity. It follows the boys to their secret underground hideaways and captures their rackety reclaiming of the local site where raves used to take place.

Ain’t Got No Fear reveals the ways industrial sites are often re-imagined by youths with a form of spatial justice defined by friendship and play, the thrill of subverting authority and evading adult surveillance.

The film is co-written and filmed with the boys and was developed through workshops and events held around Grain through 2015 and 2016. For one workshop, Mikhail invited acclaimed multi-instrumentalist and performer Kassia Zermon (aka Bunty) to lead a practical session, which explored vocal looping and beat-making, sampling, filming and VJing – real-time visual performance created in response to music with Dave Meckin (Sound designer) and Andy Sowerby (VJ).

Ain’t Got No Fear was co-commissioned by Whitstable Biennale and Ideas Test.