Mapping Academia – (European) Black Studies/Afro-American Studies/African Studies
This panel discussed the current state as well as the history of Black Studies in Europe in relation to the evolution of Black Studies in the United States. Participants were invited to bring pieces of music to enhance and frame the academic discussion. With Franck Freitas-Ekué (Centre de recherches sociologiques et politiques de Paris), Alexander Ghedi Weheliye (Northwestern University, Chicago) and Noémi Michel (Université de Genève). Moderated by Mahret Ifeoma Kupka.
The Pathways of Healing and Caring
Video available soon
Video works by the artists Tabita Rezaire and Gladys Kalichini followed by a discussion with the artists. Moderated by Mahret Ifeoma Kupka and Isabel Raabe. In Deep Down Tidal (2017), Tabita Rezaire explores the ocean as a site and medium of colonialist and neo-colonialist power structures, while also engaging with the healing power of water. Gladys Kalichini shows her work ... these practices are done in sharing her stories (2020) which deals with the invisibility of women in the history of the colonial resistance and the erasure of memory. The screenings will be followed by a discussion with the artists about their artistic practice in the field of caring and healing and about art as a healing tool. Curated by Mahret Ifeoma Kupka and Isabel Raabe.
Franck Freitas-Ekué is a PhD in political science at the University of Paris-8 Vincennes - Saint-Denis (France). His dissertation is entitled "Black Bodies®: Genealogy of a racial identification through the commodification of the body". His work focuses on the politics of representation within the Black Atlantic, the construction of Black identities in a context of capitalist economy. He co-edited, "Penser avec Stuart Hall" this year.
Alexander Ghedi Weheliye is professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University where he teaches Black literature and culture, critical theory, social technologies, and popular culture. He is the author of Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (2005), Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human (2014), Feenin: Black Music and Technology in the Now (forthcoming). Currently, he is working on Black Life/SchwarzSein, which situates Blackness as an ungendered ontology of unbelonging.
Noémi Michel is an antiracist and feminist scholar, activist and cultural worker. She is senior lecturer in political theory at the Department of Political Science of the University of Geneva and teaches on a regular basis at the Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design (HEAD) – Genève. She is member of the European Race and Imagery Foundation (ERIF), the Collectif Faites des Vagues (based in Geneva). At the juncture of theory and artistic and collective experiments, her work is rooted in critical Black thought. It currently explores divergent understandings of antiracism in European public debates and institutions as well as diasporic Black feminist theories of political voice.
Tabita Rezaire is infinity longing to experience itself in human form. Her path as an artist, devotee, yogi, doula, and soon to be farmer is all geared towards manifesting the divine in herself and beyond. As an eternal seeker, Tabita’s yearning for connection finds expression in her cross-dimensional practices, which envision network sciences - organic, electronic and spiritual - as healing technologies to serve the shift towards heart consciousness. Embracing digital, corporeal and ancestral memory, she digs into scientific imaginaries and mystical realms to tackle the colonial wounds and energetic imbalances that affect the songs of our body-mind-spirits. Through screen interfaces and healing circles, her offerings aim to nurture our collective growth and expand our capacity for togetherness.
Gladys Kalichini is a contemporary visual artist and researcher from Lusaka, Zambia. Her work centres around notions of erasure, memory, and representations and visibilities of women in colonial resistance histories. Gladys is currently a PhD candidate at Rhodes University in South Africa and a member of the Arts of Africa and Global Souths research programme, supported by the Andrew. W. Mellon Foundation and the National Research Fund. She has participated in Àsìkò International Art Programme in Maputo, Mozambique in 2015 and the second iteration of the “Women On Aeroplanes” project in Lagos, Nigeria in 2018 themed “Search Research: Looking for Collete Omogbai”.
Dr. Mahret Ifeoma Kupka is an art scholar, freelance writer and, since 2013, Curator of Fashion, Body and Performance at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. In her exhibitions, lectures, texts, and interdisciplinary projects, she addresses the issues of the future, memory culture, representation, and the decolonization of art and cultural practices in Europe and on the African continent. She is a member of the advisory board of the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland e.V. and spokesperson for the Neue Deutsche Museumsmacher*innen.
Isabel Raabe is a curator and project developer from Berlin. She studied Contemporary Dance and later cultural management and curated numerous interdisciplinary international art and cultural projects. She is interested in curatorial and artistic strategies that deconstruct Western perspectives and traditions of thought. She recently initiated RomArchive - Digital Archive of the Roma, funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, which won the European Heritage Award 2019 and the Grimme Online Award 2020. Isabel Raabe initiated the project TALKING OBJECTS which consists of the TALKING OBJECTS LAB and the TALKING OBJECTS ARCHIVE, a digital archive for decolonial knowledge production which is supposed to be launched in 2024.
Mapping Academia - Black Studies/Afro-American Studies/African Studies and The Pathways of Healing and Caring are part of the event series TALKING OBJECTS LAB. The events take place in Senegal, Kenya and Germany, accompanied by satellite events around the world.
The TALKING OBJECTS LAB accompanies the development of the TALKING OBJECTS ARCHIVE, a digital archive for decolonial knowledge production, which is scheduled to go online in 2024.
Further information: talkingobjectslab.org