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Fortunate is the stone which rest where its matter lies.
Jose y Gasset Ortega, 1973
Buy Prints
Commission
Fortunate is the stone which rest where its matter lies.
Jose y Gasset Ortega, 1973
Director: G O K E
Sound: G O K E
Production in association with UCL
Format: digital media
Duration: 16 mins 41 seconds
Year: 2025
Director Statement
Growing up as “Peter” in the UK, I came of age at the intersection of administrative fiction and diasporic truth. The moment I received a citizenship letter in someone else’s name, I began an odyssey through bureaucracy—a journey that blurred the line between identity and absurdity. The archive became a mirror and a maze. This film is not only a retelling of that journey, but a confrontation with the very structures that mediate belonging, memory, and meaning.
Archives Also Die is my attempt to reclaim voice through form—to juxtapose the rationalist facade of empire with the chaotic, affective, lived realities of postcolonial subjects. I did not want to merely critique the archive from afar, but to live within it—to screen record it, mispronounce its metadata, pixelate its hierarchies, and project it onto the walls of the present.
My body and voice carry the friction between my ancestral name—Oluwatosin Oluwakayode Ominiyi Temi Tope Peter Adegoke—and the imposed simplicity of “Peter.” This film insists that representation is not enough. Transformation is necessary. Through tunnels, towers, and terminals, I offer a new passage through history—not to retrieve what was lost, but to reshape what remains.