Telfar X FAKA: Not For You, For Everyone

“Rarely do I get approached to be part of something where the planets align so well,“ explains photographer and director Akinola Davies of his latest film—which captures a powerful a capella performance orchestrated by South African musicians Fela Gucci and Desire Marea, who collaborate as FAKA. The choir’s song unfolds within Mexican architect Frida Escobedo’s Serpentine Pavilion: a soot black structure using hundreds of thin concrete tiles, forming an interpretation of the traditional Mexican celosia—a type of building that uses perforations to enable better air circulation. Working through and against the building’s design, the choir—dressed in pieces from menswear label Telfar’s SS19 collection—took a different tack, using these sight-giving slits in the building’s face as a frame to address issues relating to power, race, and spectatorship.