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- Convenors:
-
Sindi-Leigh McBride
(University of Basel)
Julia Rensing (University of Basel)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- African Studies
- Location:
- Room 1224
- Sessions:
- Friday 10 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel explores creative approaches to key discourses of critical relevance in African Studies: decoloniality; gender and race; and environmentalism. Scholars, curators, artists, and activists are brought into conversation to engage new interstices of knowledge production in African Studies.
Long Abstract:
This panel engages with key discourses that are increasingly relevant in and to African Studies and brings together scholars, curators, artists, and activists to explore new interstices of knowledge production. Directing attention to critical events and developments on the continent, invited speakers will present alternative methodologies and strategies for accessing discourses on (1) decoloniality (2) race and gender (3) environmentalism. The panel investigates interdisciplinary modes of inquiry for navigating power asymmetries and the epistemic constraints that have hindered the field to date. As an introduction, conveners McBride and Rensing reflect on ways of reading art as data for analysis in teaching African Studies, with contributions from artists Tuli Mekondjo (Namibia), Lady Skollie (South Africa) and Nandipha Mntambo (Eswatini/South Africa).
The panel aspires to generate a platform for interdisciplinary shared learning between artists, academics, curators and activists on alternative modes of knowledge production, allowing for an inclusive debate on developing opportunities to enrich African Studies via curatorial strategies, contemporary art and creative methodologies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 10 June, 2022, -Duane Jethro (University of Cape Town)
Paper short abstract:
A reflection on the process of curating the University of Cape Town, Jagger Library Memorial exhibition.
Paper long abstract:
The Centre for Curating the Archive in Cape Town engages with curatorship as a creative site of knowledge production and in collaboration with the Michaelis Galleries will curate and host the University of Cape Town Jagger Library memorial exhibition, documenting the April 2021 loss of the Jagger Library. Together with Jade Nair, curator at Michaelis Gallery at the University of Cape Town, I co-curated an exhibition to memorialise the tragic fire at the University of Cape Town campus in April 2021. The exhibition will open to the public in April 2022. Together with Jade, we will contribute to the panel “Creative Knowledge Production and Alternative Approaches in African Studies” by reflecting on the development of the exhibition as an example of designing new strategies and methods for curating, exhibiting and commemorating that allowed furthering public engagement with questions around loss, remembrance, heritage and knowledge. The aim in bringing these experiences into dialogue with other panel participants is in developing new interstices of knowledge production, creative strategies and methods for African Studies, as is the incentive of this panel.
Ruth Sacks (University of Johannesburg)
Paper short abstract:
I address decoloniality in the ecological turn in contemporary art and how it can contribute to African Studies. Using the example of the recent Response-ability project (Johannesburg, 2021), I explore art's potential as an activating force, instead of being merely illustrative of current theory.
Paper long abstract:
This paper addresses issues of decoloniality in the ecological turn in contemporary art and how it can contribute to African Studies. Sacks uses examples of artworks and discussions from the recent project Response-ability (2020-1) to consider how issues of race are intertwined with the devastation of the ecology. As a large-scale collaboration between visual artists, researchers and growers that took place in an inner city community garden of Johannesburg on the site of a former colonial greenhouse, Response-ability provides a lens to consider the extent to which visual art interventions can function beyond their symbolic capacity. The aim is to explore what visual art projects can bring to African Studies as an activating force of change, instead of merely illustrating existing theories and arguments.
Ayokunmi Ojebode (University of Nottingham)
Paper short abstract:
This study critically explores drumbeats/stock phrase(s) engendering denotative and connotative significations reflecting didactics, sarcasm and aristocracy associated with a Yoruba monarch in Southwest Nigeria. The primary data is a live Yoruba talking drumming performance at the historical Tìmì of Ede, Oba Muniru Laminisa’s palace. The study concludes that the Talking drumming performance reflects didactics, sarcasm and projection of aristocracy associated with Yoruba monarchy.
Paper long abstract:
Despite extensive studies on Yoruba oral arts, Talking drumming performance in a Yoruba palace in Southwest Nigeria has insufficiently been underscored given its unique blend of text and context to generate meaning within the Yoruba socio-culture, history, politics and music. Therefore, this study critically assesses drumbeats/stock phrase(s) engendering denotative and connotative significations reflecting didactics, sarcasm and aristocracy associated with a Yoruba monarch in Southwest Nigeria. Talking drum (Dundun) has distinct speech surrogacy or membranophonic sounds when drummed to mimic any form of expression given its tonality (low, middle and high) grounded in the Yoruba phonetics. Karin Barber’s (1991) postulation on the panegyrics of Yoruba kings reiterates the act of monopoly and hierarchy in a public event, especially when the king dotted with eulogies: “big man is on display.” Thus, at the king's disposal, oral and performing arts served purposes of self-aggrandisement, exaltation, and public reputation among subjects. Barber’s (2005) Text and Context as study’s construct would be used to analyse drumbeats/stock phrase(s) from a Talking drumming performance in a Yoruba palace in Southwest Nigeria. Text as the permanent artefact, either handwritten or printed or performance, is concretised and retained only in the audience’s minds. In this study, contexts are specific circumstances that trigger a variety of meanings of drum texts in the Yoruba culture. The primary data is a live Yoruba talking drumming performance of satires/proverbs by the royal ensemble at the historical Tìmì of Ede, Oba Muniru Laminisa’s palace. Apart from the history-preserving resource for the transitory Yoruba royal praise-singing tradition, the study concludes that the Talking drumming performance reflects didactics, sarcasm and projection of aristocracy associated with Yoruba monarchy.