Reaching into his own memory-bank of life in Dagenham and coming-of-age into adulthood, Larry Achiampong has created a new score, titled These Ends.  The piece combines new audio compositions and prose with field recordings and audio samples of places that are familiar to where Achiampong lived in the early 2000s with his father. This includes sounds that can be heard near Thaxted House – the post-war council building where Achiampong resided – Becontree Underground Station, vehicles traversing the A13 motorway route and Old Dagenham Park.

Looking at both personal and communal heritage through the lens of the landscape and life in the area, Achiampong’s investigations, although centred on his experiences, serve to expose the lived realities of socio-economic deprivation, racism and abandonment more broadly during the new millennium.  A time when the failures of New Labour and the reverberations of 9/11 could be felt widely and deeply in Essex, which the artist recounts through this work.

This new audio work is developed using “Sanko-time” a concept developed by the artist that relates to the Ghanaian Twi word Sankofa, which roughly translates as to “go back for what has been left behind” and alludes to using the past as a vehicle to prepare for the future. Sonically, Achiampong calls upon his memories, as ghost-like presences, that subtly envelope his composition to thus emanate feelings of dysphoria.

‘These Ends’ draws on the artist’s experience of growing up in Dagenham . It formed part of the script for Achiampong’s film ‘Wayfinder’ which was presented at the artist’s first major solo exhibition at Turner Contemporary (Margate) in 2022.

‘These Ends’ was commissioned by Create London for the Becontree Centenary and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.