ARA Podcast - The Challenge of publishing artistic research on a digital platform

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

#South Africa #Arts Research Africa #Arts #Podcasting Education

21:04

Step into the mysterious and visually stunning world of The Electric State as host Francesca Amiker takes you behind the scenes with the creative masterminds who brought Simon Stålenhag’s dystopian vision to life. In this premiere episode, directors Joe and Anthony Russo, stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and producers Angela Russo-Otstot and Chris Castaldi reveal how they transformed a haunting graphic novel into an epic cinematic experience. Watch The Electric State coming to Netflix on March 14th. Check out more from Netflix Podcasts . State Secrets: Inside the Making of The Electric State is produced by Netflix and Treefort Media.…

6 years ago 44:39

M4A•एपिसोड होम

In this ARA dialogue, we explore the thinking behind Ellipses the innovative online publishing platform for creative research that has been just issued a submission call for its third issue. [www.ellipses.org.za] The editor-in-chief/digital editor of Ellipses, Dr Tegan Bristow, and the editor of issue 3, Dr Mareli Stolp, are in discussion with Prof Christo Doherty, from the ARA (Arts Research Africa) project in the Wits School of Arts.

50 एपिसोडस

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

ARA Podcast - The Challenge of publishing artistic research on a digital platform

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

published 6 years ago

साझा करें

M4A•एपिसोड होम

50 एपिसोडस

#South Africa #Arts Research Africa #Arts #Podcasting Education

Alla avsnitt

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Russel Hlongwane: Reimagining Tradition and Modernity 55:39

19 weeks ago55:39

55:39

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks to Russel Hlongwane, an artist whose work pushes boundaries, reshapes narratives, and bridges the often complex interplay between heritage and innovation. Russel is a visionary South African artist, cultural producer, and filmmaker from KwaZulu-Natal. Russel’s work, deeply rooted in Zulu tradition, examines how indigenous knowledge systems intersect with global modernity. Through his multidisciplinary approach, often interrogating and reimagining the tropes of Afro-futurism, he crafts performances, installations, and films that not only challenge conventional notions of art but also provoke reflection on cultural memory, displacement, and the future of African identity. In this episode, we explore Russel’s artistic journey, from his early years growing up in between Durban and rural Msinga, to his emergence as one of the most compelling voices in African contemporary art. A central aspect of Russel’s practice includes artistic research which informs his creative producing, design, and curatorship. Russel is a member of a number of collectives, working groups and programmes spread across the SADC region, the continent and internationally; and is on the International Advisory Board for the Prince Claus Fund. He is currently studying towards the Southern Urbanism MPhil at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town). Russel shares how his upbringing in a province steeped in Zulu history inspired his interest in exploring ancestral wisdom, storytelling, and ritual in his work. He reveals how he uses these elements to interrogate issues of colonial legacy, globalization, and the digitization of culture. One of the highlights of our conversation is Russel’s unique perspective on the role of performance art in society. He speaks candidly about how his live performances, often incorporating music, movement, and spoken word, aim to create communal experiences that resonate across generations. His work is a call to remember—to reconnect with histories that are often erased or misrepresented, while imagining technological futures that are deeply rooted in African cosmologies. We also delve into his filmmaking, a medium he describes as a “meeting point of time and space.” Russel’s films are known for their experimental narratives, blending documentary and fiction to explore themes of migration, urbanization, and identity. He discusses the challenges and joys of working within an African context, where resources may be limited but the stories and creative potential are boundless. Throughout our conversation, Russel emphasizes the importance of collaboration and community in his practice. Whether working with musicians, traditional healers, or fellow young creatives such as Lo-Def Film Factory, he views art as a collective effort to make sense of a rapidly changing world while holding onto the threads of what makes us human. Quiet Conversations · Ifu Elimnyama: The Dark Cloud Splitscreen HD · Books by Clapperton Mavhunga · Dzata: The Institute of Technological Consciousness…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Stephen Hobbs: Negotiating the complexities of Johannesburg with art practices 58:21

24 weeks ago58:21

58:21

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks to Stephen Hobbs, a South African artist whose work spans a wide range of media, exploring themes of urban transformation, architecture, and social dynamics. Known for his thought-provoking installations and public art projects, Stephen has a distinctive approach that often examines the hidden infrastructures of cities, and the intersection of natural and built environments. Stephen has an exhibition, a survey of his career of almost thirty years, entitled “Man Shouting in Distance” which is running at the Wits Art Museum until 23 November. Stephen earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in 1993. From 1994 to 2000, he served as the curator of the Market Theatre Galleries, fostering a dynamic space for contemporary art in the city. In 2001, he co-founded The Trinity Session with fellow Wits fine arts graduates Kathryn Smith and Marcus Neustetter. Trinity was an artist collaborative and public art consultancy dedicated to integrating art into urban environments. Stephen’s own artistic practice often explored themes of city infrastructure and social dynamics, laying the groundwork for his later explorations into the intersections of art, architecture, and public space. Recently, Stephen has ventured into bio-art, working with mycelium—the root structure of fungi—to investigate natural systems that mirror urban networks. His innovative approach challenges us to reconsider the hidden connections that shape both our cities and our planet. In this podcast we discuss Stephen’s beginning as an artist, his family background, education and early influences, and how growing up in Johannesburg shaped his perspective as an artist. We go on to examine his strategies as an artist exploring the urban landscape, and negotiating the complexities of post-apartheid transformations in the Johannesburg geography. We also discuss Stephen’s interest in strategies of deception and camouflage and how these have manifested in his practice. We then explore the range of mediums that Stephen has used to express his ideas and how his practice has evolved over his career. Finally we follow Stephen into a new terrain of practice - BioArt - in which he has been working with mycelia to explore the hidden connections between the structure of cities and the planetary environment. The opening of Stephen's mycelium based exhibition, The Visitors, at David Krut Projects · Stephen's 2019 exhibition Body Parts at David Krut Projects · Lesego Chepape's M&G review of The Visitors exhibition · The American…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Physics and the artistic imagination: Ariane Koek and Arts at CERN 59:23

31 weeks ago59:23

59:23

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks to Ariane Koek, a prominent British independent producer, curator, and writer, recognized globally for her pioneering work at the intersection of art and science. With a career spanning several decades Ariane is particularly noted for founding the Arts at CERN program, which she designed and directed from 2009 to 2015. This initiative was the first official international arts program at CERN and aimed to foster collaboration between artists and scientists. Under her leadership, the program included various residency opportunities for artists, allowing them to explore and interpret scientific concepts through their creative practices. The project has just been awarded the Grand Prize - Innovative Collaboration at Ars Electronica 2024. The prize recognises innovative collaboration between industry or technology and the arts (and the cultural and creative sectors in general) that opens new pathways for innovation. In this podcast we focus on the Arts at CERN project, a curatorial and political challenge that Ariane launched single-handedly in 2010. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is an intergovernmental organization comprising 24 member states, that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world situated in a vast complex based outside Geneva in Switzerland. CERN's main function is to provide particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research. The lab's most notable project is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider, consisting of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets. The Centre has approximately 2,660 scientific, technical, and administrative staff members, and in 2019 hosted about 12,400 users from institutions in more than 70 countries. We do a deep dive into the experience of setting up the Arts at CERN programme and the lessons Ariane learnt from working with artists and scientists in such a challenging context. We then go on to unpack Ariane’s more recent insistence that we need to go beyond the acceptance of art-science collaborations as “de facto” positive and the implications of this insight for her current work as a producer and curator. Finally we touch on the continuing importance of aesthetics in both contemporary art and science while recognising the different meaning of the term "beauty" in artistic and scientific discourses. Ariane Koek's personal website with links to her writings and curatorial practice · The award citation for the 2024 Grand Prize - Innovation at Ars Electronica. · Troika at the Langen Foundation, September 2024 - Pink Noise · The website of Julius von Bismarck - the first artist in residence on the Arts at CERN programme…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Ale de la Puente: Bridging philosophy and science through artistic practice 47:32

40 weeks ago47:32

47:32

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks Ale de la Puente, an independent artist-researcher from Mexico who is doing a residency in Johannesburg as part of the Goethe Institute’s international Studio Quantum programme. Ale has studied industrial design, goldsmithing, boatbuilding, navigation, astronomy, physics, and philosophy. She is known for her poetic and conceptual explorations of time and space across a wide field of mediums, ranging from installations and sculptures to drawings, photography, and video, including art science expeditions in search of symbolic natural phenomena, how we signify them, and how, very importantly, we relate to the given meanings in art and life. Ale is a fellow of the National System of Arts Creators in Mexico. She has exhibited her work both nationally in a wide range of international galleries from the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico to the Polytechnic Museum (Moscow) and the Bass Museum of Art, in Miami, Florida to name but a few. Her work is part of leading public and private collections. Ale first developed art-science projects in collaboration with the Astronomy Institute and Nuclear Science Institute of National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM, going on to work with the Schmidt Ocean Institute in California, the Roscosmos in Russia, and the Kosmica Institute in Berlin and Mexico City. Amongst her many collaborations with scientists are the projects "Desire", "Matters of Gravity" and "Finding the Centre" which we will discuss in this podcast, as well as the project she is beginning in Johannesburg as part of the Goethe Institut’s Studio Quantum initiative - an international events and artist-in-residence programme which is exploring emerging quantum technologies through the lens of art. In this podcast we discuss how Ale came to art practice, beginning with her accidental discovery of Industrial Design and her first art-science collaborations with the Institute of Astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Mexica. We then unpack what went into the public space art-intervention she called "Desire" where , working with artisan firework craftsmen, she built an artificial comet that flew in the evening sky above Mexico City in 2016. We explore how she navigates the challenges as an artist engaging with the scientific lab through her experience of working at the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) where she has had two residencies, We then look at her collaborative project with 6 other artists called Matters of Gravity (2012-14), where they elaborated the different implications of zero gravity using the facilities at Star City in the Yuri Gagarin Cosmosnaut Training Centre outside Moscow. Finally we discuss the lessons that Ale has drawn from her extensive engagement with scientists working in a wide variety of disciplines and how she is going about her work on her project, entitled "Is it going to rain" with the Quantum Studio project in Johannesburg. Useful links to Ale’s project website and other information and can be found in the show notes for this podcast. Ale de la Puente - artist's portfolio website · Schmidt Ocean Institute - Ale de la Puente · Studio Quantum: An international events and artist-in-residence programme from the Goethe-Institut, exploring emerging quantum technologies through the lens of art. · Matters Of Gravity.pdf — PDF (7.4 MB)…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Man makes flute from own bone: Ralph Borland artist researcher activist 56:24

52 weeks ago56:24

56:24

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks to Dr Ralph Borland, an independent artist-researcher and curator based in Cape Town. Ralph has a degree in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town, a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. His PhD was a critique of first world design interventions in the developing world. His subsequent post-doctoral work at UCT focused on the African city and North-South knowledge inequalities. He has continued to purse his interest in democratisation and the creative use of emerging technologies with projects such as African Robots, his collaboration with Southern African street artists where he helped them introduce electronics and mechanics to their practice. His art-design piece, Suited for Subversion, a protective and performance suit for street protest in the New York Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. He co-curated the exhibition Design and Violence at the Science Gallery in Dublin in 2016 and Future Present: Design in a Time of Urgency at the Science Gallery in Detroit. He has just completed a fellowship in the Institute for Humanities in Africa at UCT which he concluded with the exhibition Aesthetic Interventions in Artificial Intelligence in Africa which featured the remarkable collaborative work BoneFlute which we discuss in some detail in this podcast. In this podcast, we discuss how Ralph came to art practice and his first degree, majoring in sculpture, in Fine Art at Michaelis. We examine his lateral move into electrical engineering with his PhD at Trinity and the curatorial work he did at the Dublin Science Gallery. We then unpack in detail his most recent collaborative, and ongoing artistic research project, with the orthopaedic surgeon Dr Rudolph Venter, the flutist, Alessandro Gigli, and the film-maker Dara Kell. Finally we consider the relationship between artistic practice, research, and activism. Ralph Borland's artist's home page · information around Ralph's exhibition AIAIA – Aesthetic Interventions in Artificial Intelligence in Africa, which showed art-research work from my fellowship on the Future Hospitals project at HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town · Ralph's Boneflute project site · Bone Flute - Brief - 2024.pdf — PDF (5.4 MB)…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Miranda Moss: artist, outsider-engineer, eco-geek and rogue educator 48:27

1 year ago48:27

48:27

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks to Miranda Moss, a South African artist, outsider-engineer, eco-geek, and rogue educator who is currently based in Sweden. Miranda’s transdisciplinary practice, which focuses on the problematics and hopeful possibilities of technology from a socio-ecological and anticolonial feminist perspective, has seen her exhibit, teach, and perform research internationally in a variety of art, science, community, academic, public, and hacker spaces. Miranda graduated with a Bachelor of Art in Fine Art, with a distinction in sculpture from the Michaelis School of Art, UCT, in 2012 . In 2017, she was the recipient of the Pro Helvetia / Artists-in-Labs residency, where she was stationed in a phytopathology laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow, Forest and Landscape near Zurich, investigating the colonial weight of “invasive alien” microorganisms. In 2020, she was awarded the konS Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art’s project production grant alongside collaborator Daniel Brownell, for a work reimagining factory farming and robotics and working alongside agri-tech scientists. In 2021, she completed a Masters degree in Sustainable Design at LNU in Sweden, where her thesis project, “Power Harvest; explorations in regenerative energy technologies within the (post) colonial climate emergency” involved distilling cutting edge scientific experiments into poetic, artistically articulated, and accessible forms of engagement. The project entailed developing a low-cost, DIY system for making electricity, fertilizer, and safely-treated water from human urine, in response to the oppressive technocoloniality inherent in post apartheid South Africa’s straining electrical, water, and sanitation urban grid systems. She has just embarked on a 3 year long collaborative research project titled “Regenerative Energy Communities; artistic and collective energy experiments for resilient agriculture” funded by the Swedish Energy Agency’s Program for Energy, People, and Society. In this podcast, we discuss how Miranda came to art practice and her first degree in Fine Art at Michaelis. We also examine her engagement with scientific research and her understanding of art as a form of research. We then explore, in some depth, her experience as an artist based in the laboratories of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape in Zurich and the impact that this had on her understanding of art and research. Finally, we unpack the work she did for her MA in Sustainable Design and her move into the world of Regenerative Energy and the potential applications of this thinking in South Africa. The outcome of Miranda MA's project · Miranda's post Arist-in-Lab (AiL) residency exhibition · Miranda's own website · Regenerative Energy Communities, Växjoö, Sweden…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Nathaniel Stern: teaching everyone how to sustain their work with entrepreneurial thinking 52:29

1 year ago52:29

52:29

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty speaks to Professor Nathaniel Stern, an artist, writer and teacher who holds a 50/50 dual appointment at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as a Professor in Art and Design and Mechanical Engineering where “he teaches artists how to engineer, engineers how to art, and everyone how to sustain their work with entrepreneurial thinking.” Nathaniel’s most recent art project, a travelling exhibition, called "The World After US (TWAU): Imaging techno-aesthetic futures", is a fascinating and constantly mutating physical melange of botany and discarded electronics that challenges viewers to imagine “what our digital media will be and do in the world after us”. One aspect of the TWAU project, called "The Wall After Us", was was recently featured as part of the SYM|BIO|ART exhibition at University of Johannesburg. The exhibition launched the newly formed Creative Microbiology Research Co-Lab at the University of Johannesburg led by Prof Leora Farber. Nathaniel also has a long association with Johannesburg and the Wits School of Arts. With a Masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, he was responsible for designing and teaching the first years of the Interactive Media studio programme in the Digital Arts department. Over that time he also won the Brett Kebble Art Award in both 2003 and 2004, thus earning the first recognition for interactive and digital art in the South African art world. Following his time in Johannesburg, he went on to do a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland writing his dissertation on interactive art and embodiment. Since his PhD, Nathaniel has created a dazzling range of exploratory art projects, often in collaboration with other artists, scientists and engineers. In fact the journal Scientific American says Stern’s art is “tremendous fun,” and “fascinating” in how it is “investigating the possibilities of human interaction and art.” I urge listeners to visit his website to get a grasp of the extent of his artistic and writerly practice. In this discussion, we talk about the TWAU project; and the experience of installing the "The Wall After Us" working remotely from the US together with the curatorial team at the FADA gallery. We also explore Nathaniel’s thinking about aesthetics and the relationship between aesthetics and activism, especially the climate activism that is central to his work. Finally we unpack the Startup Challenge which Nathaniel directs at Lubar Entrepreneurship Centre at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I think that the expanded notions of both innovation and entreprepreneurship that Nathaniel deploys in the programme are of great value for similar work at Wits, and in South Africa more broadly. Useful links to Nathaniel’s website, books, exhibitions, and papers: His website: https://nathanielstern.com His latest published paper, together with Johannes Lehmann and Rachel Garber-Cole: "Novelty and Utility: How the Arts May Advance Question Creation in Contemporary Research". Leonardo (2023) 56 (5): 488–495. DOI https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02400 The TWU site, with downloadable PDF of the exhibition catalogue and a video documentary: https://nathanielstern.com/text/2020/catalog-the-world-after-us/ https://nathanielstern.com/artwork/documentary-the-world-after-us/ Nathaniel's first book, with downloadable intro chapter: Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics https://nathanielstern.com/text/2018/ecological-aesthetics/ The Lubar Entrepreneurship Centre webpage: https://uwm.edu/lubar-entrepreneurship-center/student-startup-challenge/#…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Bruce Barton - Understanding Artistic Research in terms of methods, knowledge, and impact 56:37

2 years ago56:37

56:37

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty speaks to Professor Bruce Barton the Director of the University of Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Arts, and the Co-Artistic Director (with Pil Hansen) of Vertical City, an interdisciplinary performance hub they co-founded in Toronto in 2007. Bruce is a teacher and theorist of artistic research and is also a top creative practitioner. He has extensive experience as a director, playwright, dramaturg, and designer with numerous intermedial performance companies across Canada and internationally. In addition he has published widely and edited both major peer-reviewed and professional journals and is the editor/contributor of seven books, most recently the seminal collections, Performance as Research: Methodology, Knowledge, Impact in 2017 and At the Intersection between Art and Research in 2010. Bruce has also been very active in scholarly organisations. He was the founder and co-convenor of the “Articulating Artistic Research” Seminar at the Canadian Association for Theatre Research,IFTR, which he began in 2012. He is also a co-convenor of the Performance as Research Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research and the Artistic Research Working Group of Performance Studies international (PSi). It was his involvement with these organisations that brought him to Africa last month where he participated in the first African IFTR Conference in Ghana, followed by the first African PSi Conference held in Johannesburg, and hosted by the Wits School of Arts. Christo caught up with him shortly after his return to Canada to discuss his experience of the two conferences in two different African cities, the differences between the IFTR and PSi and the value of such scholarly organisations to emerging scholars. We then untangle the terminology around Performance as Research and Artistic Research before considering Bruce's key terms for evaluating Artistic Research: Methods, Knowledge, and Impact. Finally we explore the very exciting work that he has done, with his creative partner, Pil Hansen, with the Vertical City Performance in Toronto, particularly their innovative engagements using performance into the fields of cognitive science,and cognitive philosophy. Performance Research Knowledge · Vertical City Performance · International Federation for Performance Research · Perfromance Studies International…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Tanja Sakota: Using Artistic Research to uncover traumatic memories 56:23

2 years ago56:23

56:23

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks to Prof Tanja Sakota, an artistic researcher, writer, and filmmaker in the Department of Film & Television in the Wits School of Arts. Tanja is the author of an important new book, just published by Wits University Press, called Uncovering Memory: Filming in South Africa, Germany, Poland, and Bosnia/Herzegovina. Tanja has had more than 20 years of experience in the academic teaching of film and television, and Uncovering Memory is her first book publication. I’ve been looking forward to talking to her about her book, which appeared in March 2023, because I regard it as an important advance in the application of artistic research in South Africa. In this discussion we unpack her account of the ways that she uses the camera as a tool for research to uncover memory traces as they become accessible through architecture, sites and locations in landscape and city spaces. A striking aspect of her approach as a researcher and practitioner is how her practice draws directly from the learnings she has derived from her problem-based teaching in the classroom with South African and European students and academic peers, notably in the wake of the #FeesMustFall protests which disrupted Wits campus in 2015/16. Her research practice is also informed by the deeply personal experience of trauma, both her parent’s shattering experiences of trauma as children during the final years of WWII in Europe and her own personal experience of trauma while she was undertaking this research. We examine the way that these traumatic experiences, both transgenerational and personal, motivated her turn towards auto ethnography and the manner in which she has blurred the boundaries of theory and practice with modes of creative writing in the production of her book. Finally we discuss her trajectory, over the course of her research and writing, from a notion of practice-based research to artistic research. Useful links to the films discussed in this podcast and Tanja's book can be found in the show notes below. Tanja's book, Uncovering Memory, published by Wits University Press · The Wits student film discussed in the podcast: Lurking Silhouettes by Shubham Metha. · The Wits student film discussed in the podcast: Johannes comes to Town by Boitumelo Molalugi · Tanja's research film, Shattered Reflections, as discussed in the podcast and her book.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Feeling at home everywhere and nowhere: Doris Bloom at the Origins Centre 41:23

2 years ago41:23

41:23

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks to Doris Bloom, a multidisciplinary South African artist who has been based in Denmark since 1976. She currently has a major exhibition called Bird Bone Whistler at the Origins Centre Museum in Johannesburg until 02 July 2023. Doris was born on a farm outside Vereeniging and her deep imaginative engagement with the African landscape has powerfully informed her work over the last 46 years. She began her career by studying ceramics at the Johannesburg College of Art and then a Masters in contemporary art at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art in Copenhagen. She is best known as a painter and printmaker as well as a performance artist, often performing in front of her finished works or, as she did at the opening of her Origins Centre exhibition, creating an artwork in front of her audience. Doris has received numerous awards and public commissions and has exhibited internationally. In this discussion we talk about the path she followed to become an artist, and explore her movement into performance in 2003 and the way that she has mapped a visceral discourse of body, language and memory. We also examine the ways in which her work engages with the sciences of palaeontology and archeology and the significance of visual technologies such as VR for her practice as an artist working in collaborative performance. The online catalogue for Bird Bone Whistler is available at https://www.birdbonewhistler.com/ Catalogue - Bird Bone Whistler · Information about the Origins Centre Exhibition of Bird Bone Whistler…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Sela Adjei - the power of authentically African artistic research 51:50

2 years ago51:50

51:50

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty, the Chair of Research in the Wits School of Arts, speaks to Dr Sela Adjei, a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and curator from Ghana and a leading proponent of a distinctly African approach to artistic research. Sela has degrees in communication design and African art and culture from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and received his PhD in African studies from the University of Ghana, Legon. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Media, Arts and Communication in Ghana. He has participated in over 20 exhibitions and curated several high profile exhibitions and art festivals. His latest exhibition, Zadokeli, the Ewe word for eclipse, is a collaboration with the poets Mawuli Adsei and Elikplim Akorli. It opens on the 25th May at the Museum of Science and Technology in Acra. For those of us not able to get to Acra, a number of selected paintings (Black Power Series) complemented bye Elikplim Akorli’s spoken word poetry will form a virtual component of the exhibition in order to reach a wider global audience Sela’s work as an artistic researcher first came to our attention with a paper he presented at the ARA2020 Conference in Johannesburg. Entitled "The Philosophy of Art in Ewe-Vodu Religion", in his paper he described his engagement with the Ewe-Vodu belief system through a combination of auto-ethnography and his own artistic practice. In the field of artistic research which is so dominated by paradigms developed in the Global North, Sela’s paper was a flash of light from a genuinely African perspective. Not only did Sela’s paper seek to integrate African art, philosophy and indigenous knowledge systems into modern art practices. He also described the spirtual paradigm shift that he went through as a result of his artistic research. In this conversation, we explore Sela’s journey as an artist and researcher, and examine the challenge of engaging with forms of esoteric knowledge in Africa that do not reveal themselves to outsiders. We also look at the impact the American/Black Lives Matter and the endSARS protests in Nigeria on Sela’s work and how this manifests in his latest collaborative exhibition, Zadokeli.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Jayne Batzofin & RETAGS - the challenges of archiving performance-as-research 53:29

2 years ago53:29

53:29

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Jayne Batzofin, the digital archivist on the Reimagining Tragedy from African and the Global South (RETAGS) project. This performance-as-research project is being led by Prof. Mark Fleishman with Mandla Mbothwe in the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at University of Cape Town. The project seeks to create space for an extended interrogation of the vast body of tragic works produced in the theatres of Africa, using performance methodologies as analytical tools to gain purchase on the complex realities of the colonial aftermath. It does this by investigating current events in the postcolony beyond the theatre, through the “prism of tragedy”. Of particular relevance to the theme of this podcast, the RETAGS project endeavours to challenge the Eurocentric biases and preconceptions of Theatre Studies in two respects: firstly by shifting the perspective to Africa and the Global South thereby challenging the assumptions that align with what has been the predominant perspective in Theatre Studies; and secondly, by engaging in art practice as a mode of research in a central way alongside other more conventional research modes and methods challenging its predominant methodologies. Jayne Batzofin’s work as the digital archivist on the RETAGS project has been crucial to documenting and making available the rehearsal and development processes in the project. In other words treating the entire process as a mode of research. In this podcast we discuss the challenges of undertaking the documentation, including the ethical and IP issues that have arisen when recording both rehearsals and performances and the scrupulously careful approach that Jayne has taken towards this work. We also examine the larger implications of the digital archiving process and whether or not it could be understood as a resistance to or extension of the ever expanding digital surveillance state. Finally we look at the vast amount of material that gets generated through digital documentation, and Jayne’s views on the potential of AI for dealing with this problem. For links to the digital archive and to more information about this important project, please visit at the RETAGS website.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
The artist's sensibility in research and pedagogy: David Andrew at Wits 44:58

2 years ago44:58

44:58

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Prof David Andrew, from the Department of Fine Arts in the Wits School of Arts. We focus on the relationship between arts pedagogies and artistic research looking at his background as an arts teacher, the formative influence of his education in both South Africa and Swaziland during apartheid, the way that he has sought to bring the concept of the artist’s sensibility into both arts education and research, and his own work as a researcher and supervisor of postgraduate artistic research. David has served both as Head of the Fine Arts Department and Deputy-Head of the School. He studied for his BA Fine Arts at the University of Natal and earned his PhD at Wits with a research project entitled "The artist’s sensibility and multimodality: classrooms as works of art". David is a practising artist and lectures in Fine Arts and Arts Education courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His interest in the artist-teacher relationship has led to a number of projects aimed at researching, designing and implementing alternative paths for the training of arts educators and artists working in schools. Notably his joint co-ordination of the Curriculum Development Project Trust-Wits School of Arts partnership that developed the Advanced Certificate in Education (Arts and Culture) and the Artists in Schools and Community Art Centres programmes. His current research interests include the tracking of histories of arts education in South Africa and southern Africa more broadly; the Another Road Map School Africa Cluster research project with researchers across Africa; the On Location research project with the Konstfack University College of Arts, Craft and Design in Stockholm, Sweden; and the reimagining of the arts school, arts pedagogies and artistic research in the context of the Global South. In March 2017 he co-convened the ArtSearch International Symposium on Artistic Research in Johannesburg. He has presented at numerous conferences including the InSEA Conference in Budapest, Hungary (July 2011) and the Arts in Society Conference also in Budapest, Hungary, (June 2013) and the Arts Research Africa International Conferences (Johannesburg, South Africa, 2020 and 2022).…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
The Arts Research Africa project after five years of Mellon funding 50:38

2 years ago50:38

50:38

In this concluding podcast of the Mellon funding cycle, the ARA podcast's technical producer (and journalist) Elna Schutz hosts a discussion with the key members of the ARA project about what was achieved, what was learnt, and what opportunities were missed during the 5 + 1 years of the Mellon grant. Prof Brett Pyper, the ARA principle investigator; Zanele Madiba, the project co-ordinator; and Prof Christo Doherty, the project director open up about the project which sought to develop artistic research in the Wits School of Arts and to advance the understanding of what this approach can mean in an African context.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
From visual identities to bioart: Leora Farber and the VIAD Research Centre 51:20

2 years ago51:20

51:20

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Leora Farber Associate Professor and Director of the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Johannesburg . Under Leora’s leadership the Centre has become a vibrant hub where an international community of visiting professors, research associates, and postdoctoral fellows have conducted interdisciplinary research over the last fifteen years around the theme of African and African diasporic histories and identities; with visual practice and questions of representation at the centre of their investigations. Recently Leora has opened up a new thematic current at the centre exploring the connections between art, design and the life sciences through a bio lab due to be launched in 2023. We explore both currents in this podcast. In addition to directing the VIAD Centre, Leora is an artist, academic, editor, curator and post-graduate supervisor. She obtained a BA Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand, followed by an MA Fine Art (cum laude) also from Wits, and then DPhil in Visual Art at the University of Pretoria. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with interdisciplinary works that deal with the concerns of the body, embodiment, abjection, and activities historically associated with women’s work and domestic objects. A strongly feminist thematic which she has pursued since her first performance installation, entitled A Room of Her Own, as The Premises in Johannesburg in 2006. In this discussion we explore Leora’s personal trajectory and education as an artist and her early practice as a lecturer in Fine Arts. We look the reasons for the establishment of The Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre at the University of Johannesburg in 2007, the vision that Leora had for the Centre and the ways in which the planned research was actualised. We then discuss the important colloquium "On Making: Integrating Approaches to Practice-Led Research in Art and Design" that Leora organised at VIAD in 2009. The colloquium was the first gathering to explicitly explore the impact and implications of practice-led research in the South African context but also brought a wide range of European perspectives into the conversation. We then examine Leora’s move into an engagement with bioart, her initial collaborations with bioscientists at the University of Johannesburg, and her residency in 2019 on the SymbiotikA programme at the University of Western Australia. We explore whether bioart is a break with the concerns articulated by the work at VIAN or if it takes these concerns further into the ambit of post humanist and new materialism and we assess the implications of this work for the decolonial project. Useful links: The VIAD website: https://www.viad.co.za/ The "On Making" conference proceedings. All papers available as downloadable PDFs: https://www.viad.co.za/edited-volume-imaging-ourselves The SymbiotikaA website with details of Leora's 2019 residency: https://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Creative Research & the artists' books of Schäpers, Silverberg & Chen 34:28

2 years ago34:28

34:28

In this special episode in the ARA podcast series, Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to three internationally acclaimed and award-winning artists about their creative research into the possibilities of the book as an artwork. Veronica Schapers, Robbin Amy Silverberg, and Julie Chen are showing a range of their artists books in a spell-binding new exhibition at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for the Book Arts housed in the Wits Arts Museum. Entitled "Creative Research: The Artists’ Books of Schapers, Silverberg, and Chen", the exhibition runs till the 15th December. The reason I grabbed the opportunity to speak to these three artists, while they were in Johannesburg, is because creative research is central to their practice but in fascinatingly different ways. Through their diverse artists’ books they explore the complexities of personal and inter-cultural positions, language, and meaning-making through being. Veronika Schäpers was born in Coesfeld, Germany. She was trained as a bookbinder for three years before she studying for a diploma in painting and books at the University of Art & Design in Halle, Germany. After a three months scholarship with the Centro del bel Libro, Ascona in Switzerland, followed by a nine months scholarship with Naoaki Sakamoto in Tokyo, she began her career in 1998 as a free-lance book artist and working from her own studio in Tokyo. In 2012, Schäpers moved back to Germany and now lives and works in Karlsruhe . In her practice, Veronica explores a wide range of materials that offer visual and tactile solutions through the sensual medium of the book. Robbin Amy Silverberg is the founder of both Dobbin Mill, a hand-papermaking studio, and Dobbin Books, an artists' book studio, both in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from Princeton University with a BA Cum Laude in Art History in 1980 and began making her own paper in 1980. Since then Robbin has created great number of artists' books—both on her own and in collaboration with other artists, all over the U.S., Canada, Europe, and South Africa. Robin’s books embody her research into paper as her preferred material and as a vehicle for the multisensory experience of touch, reading and the transfer of ideas. Julie Chen was born in Inglewood, California. She completed an undergraduate degree in printmaking at the University of California, Berkeley in 1984.[1] She subsequently became interested in book arts and got a degree in book arts from Mills College in 1989. She began teaching book arts at Mills College as an adjunct in 1996 and became an associate professor in 2010. Julie has achieved prominence by creating conceptually sophisticated works that combine traditional techniques, such as letterpress printing and hand bookbinding, with more modern technologies such as photopolymer plates and laser cutting. She is known for pushing the structural boundaries of the artist's book with a range of architectural and sculptural approaches. At one point you will also hear the voice of Jack Ginsberg himself, explaining the after-exhibition access that is possible for visitors to this unique collection of artists books, one of the most comprehensive in the world. Please note that this recording was done by myself with a single microphone in the Jack Ginsberg Centre. As a result, the sound quality is not great, but I hope the content is of sufficient interest to make listening to this special ARA podcast worthwhile. Follow these links for further information: Website of The Jack Ginsberg Centre for the Book Arts http://www.theartistsbook.org.za/ The artist's own websites with images and information about their book art practice: Veronika Schäpers http://www.veronikaschaepers.net/en/ Robbin Amy Silverberg https://www.robbinamisilverberg.com/ Julie Chen https://flyingfishpress.com/…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Brett Pyper: From Jazz Cosmologies to the Cosmopolitan Collective 55:33

2 years ago55:33

55:33

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Prof Brett Pyper, the Principal Investigator on the ARA project and the leader of a major interdisciplinary research project based on popular manifestations of jazz culture in South Africa. Currently called the Cosmopolitan Collective, the project has evolved over the last 17 years from an initial study of township jazz appreciation societies in urban Gauteng, through a creative engagement with jazz cosmopolitanism in Accra in Ghana, to become a multi-facetted research project that is using a range of creative methodologies to explore and expand the status of jazz as heritage in South Africa. Currently an Associate Professor in the History of Art department in the Wits School of Arts, Brett is a cultural practitioner, arts administrator, festival director, music researcher and academic. He grew up in Pretoria, now Tswane, and completed an interdisciplinary BA in music and cultural studies at the University of South Africa. He began his career as a facilitator of developmental music projects during the transition from apartheid, before taking up a Fulbright scholarship to study in the US, where he was based for six years. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Culture from Emory University in Atlanta, and a PhD in Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies from New York University. Between 2005 and 2007 he headed the Division of Heritage Studies and Cultural Management in the Wits School of Arts, incorporating the Centre for Cultural Policy and Management. From 2008 to 2013, he was CEO of the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (Absa KKNK), one of South Africa’s major festivals of art, popular and vernacular culture, which takes place annually at Easter time in the town of Oudtshoorn in the rural Western Cape. He returned to the Wits in 2014 to take up the headship of the School of Arts, which he led until 2021. In this discussion we cover the influence of Prof Steven Feld’s "Jazz Cosmopolitanism" project in Accra, and the ways in which the South African project was a response to Feld’s work with Ghanian musicians. We look at the impact of the Covid-19 restrictions which scuppered the planned collaboration between Accra and the Johannesburg and the reasons for the choice of Cosmologies as the working title for the South African project. We examine the ways that the project managed the Covid restrictions for their ground-breaking 2020 live concert at Wits, involving creative contributions from staff and students together with South African jazz musicians. We discuss the contribution made to the concert by the local “diga” dance improvisors and significance of such embodied responses for the post-apartheid cultural project in South Africa. We then unpack the surprising motivation for renaming the project as the Cosmopolitan Collective and look more closely at the four distinct streams of practice that have come to be featured in the research collaboration of the Collective. Useful links: Prof Steven Feld's book - https://www.dukeupress.edu/jazz-cosmopolitanism-in-accra Brett Pyper's paper, Jazz Festivals and the Post-Apartheid Public Sphere: Historical Precedents and the Contemporary Limits of Freedom https://www.jstor.org/stable/44651151 Gwenn Ansell's review of the historic 2020 Cosmologies concert at Wits University - https://www.newframe.com/life-in-jazz-notes-and-rhythm/ Wadee Ranoto's video clip of "diga" performance at the Cosmologies concert - https://youtu.be/_sK7XqnNzyA…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Ways-of-Remembering-Existing: donna Kukama rewrites history & writes performance 50:24

3 years ago50:24

50:24

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to donna Kukama, a South African born interdisciplinary artist who works with performance, works on canvas, sculptural objects, video, and site-specific installation. The underlying topic of this conversation is how donna uses performance art and other practices as tools for artistic research, elaborating a challenging critique of the existing narratives of history and traditional modes of storytelling. Donna currently has a solo exhibition at the Wits Art Museum, entitled "Ways-of-Remembering-Existing" which runs until the 5th of November. Donna was born in Mafikeng, in the then South African homeland of Boputsawana in 1981. After completing a Fine Arts degree at the Tswana University of Technology, she studied for a Masters in Public Art in Switzerland. She was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Performance Art in 2014 and has gone on to exhibit and present performances at a range of prestigious national and international galleries and museums including the Museum of Modern Art in Antwerp, the nGbk in Berlin, the New Museum in New York, and the South African National Gallery in Cape Town. She is currently the Professor of Contemporary Art in the Global South at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. In this conversation, we explore donna’s personal trajectory as an artist, and her experience of different kinds of arts education in South Africa and Europe. We also discuss her Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Performance Art, the impact this had on her career and the significance of performance art in post-apartheid South Africa. We then concentrate on the interrogation of history in donna’s work, and the collaborative research project, the Centre for Historical Re-enactments, which she initiated during her time as a lecturer at Wits together with Gabi Ngcobo and Kemang Wa Lehulere. We also examine donna’s radical conception of written histories, which in her practice is not limited to the physical form of bound pages in book, but moves through rumour, memory, performance, drawing, sculptural objects, installations and sound. Finally, we unpack the creative process behind her video/performance work “The Swing (After after Fragonard) from 2009. The Swing is one of the 4 video pieces featured at her WAM exhibition. I had understood that the work was a complex critical reconfiguration of two previous works, the 18th Century Rococo painting The Swing by Fragonard, and then Yinka Shonibare’s decolonial installation from 2001 called The Swing (after Fragonard), but I had no idea of what went into the creation of donna’s work or the dramatic personal consequences for her of the performance on a swing high above Mai-Mai market in downtown Johannesburg. Important links: donna's WAM exhibition info: https://www.wits.ac.za/wam/exhibitions/ donna's video, The Swing (after after Fragonard): https://vimeo.com/202671614 Her gallery representation in SA: https://blankprojects.com/Donna-Kukama-Bio Nontobeko Ntombela's essay on donna and Reshma Chhiba's performance art: https://www.academia.edu/73685573/Silent_Toyi_Toyis_in_the_work_of_Donna_Kukama_and_Reshma_Chhiba donna's Instagram with a wealth of images and videos of her work. https://www.instagram.com/kukama_wa_kukama/?hl=en…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Shooting Down Babylon (The Art of War): The performance art of Tracey Rose 46:41

3 years ago46:41

46:41

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Tracey Rose, currently Senior Lecturer in the Fine Arts department in the Wits School of Arts, and internationally renowned as an artist who works across a range of practices, but most notably as a performance artist using her body. Tracey’s work has recently been featured in a major retrospective exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town. Curated by the new Director of the Zeitz, Koyo Kouoh, the exhibition was called Shooting Down Babylon (The Art of War). The title references one of the works on the exhibition, an installation which reflects on exorcist and cleansing rituals from non-western communities. In this discussion, we look at Tracey’s trajectory as a radical artist, activist and provocateur, from her upbringing and early schooling in Durban, and her arts education at Wits where she qualified for a BA in Fine Arts before studying for an MA at Goldsmiths College in London. We touch her on exhibition at the Zeitz Mocaa but go into greater depth into her use of photography and video, both significant aspects of her artistic practice overshadowed in the critical discourse by the dynamic physicality of her performance work. We also discuss the way that she is recognised on the international scene as a black African artist, but how in South Africa that identity is burdened by the still active apartheid definition of “coloured”. We then go some way towards unpacking the paradoxes of hypervisibility and invisibility which afflict an artist such as Tracey who deploys own body as a site for protest, outrage, resistance and pertinent discourse. Finally we explore Tracey’s growing interest in the connections between artistic practice, shamanism, and non-Western forms of spirituality as manifested in works such as Shooting Down Babylon. I highly recommend Tracey’s audio walk through of her Zeitz exhibition which is available at https://zeitzmocaa.museum/exhibition/exhibitions/shooting-down-babylon/ Also highly recommended is Tracey’s address to the Global Feminisms Exhibition in New York in 2007: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX5iLPLWzPM Articles worth consulting: Kellie Jones, "Tracey Rose: Postapartheid Playground". Journal of Contemporary African Art. 29 Summer 2004. Polly Savage, "Playing to the Gallery: Masks, Masquerade and Museums". African Arts 41,4 Winter 2008. Emmanuel Balogum, "Tracey Rose: Shooting Down Babylon". Art Monthly 456 May 2022.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Art, Research, and Innovation: Hannelie Coetzee's ecological public art 51:00

3 years ago51:00

51:00

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Hannelie Coetzee, a Johannesburg-based ecological artist who has been working across the boundaries of art, science and activist engagement. Hannelie describes herself as a visual artist, researcher and innovator. Through her ecological art practice, she aims to grow audiences that appreciate art, contextualise the science behind the natural world, and improve environmental infrastructure development through functional artworks. She uses waste materials alongside unlikely transdisciplinary partnerships to build site specific artworks and interventions which are extensively documented on her website.https://www.hanneliecoetzee.com/ Hannelie has also just completed an MSc at Wits. We are familiar with artists who undertake MAFAs or MFAs in collaboration with scientists or science labs; but Hannelie was accepted to do an MSc in the Faculty of Science despite the fact that she had no undergraduate science training. The subject of her research was Art as Transformative Praxis interrogating transient ecologic patterns. This is an important breakthrough which we will explore in this podcast together with Hannelie’s work as a visual artist and, very importantly, as an innovator. We also discuss her collaborative engagements with scientists on a variety of projects including her large-scale "veld burns" and her engagements with urban greening and indigenous healers. This podcast was recorded remotely with Hannelie in Denmark and myself in Johannesburg. We had some technical problems with the recording; but I think the subject matter is so fascinating that I ask you to bear with the occasional variations in sound quality.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Invisibility and hyper-visibility: Portia Malatjie and Nontobeko Ntombela on curating When Rain Clouds Gather 59:19

3 years ago59:19

59:19

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Dr Portia Malatjie and Nontobeko Ntombela, the curators of When Rain Clouds Gather, an important new exhibition at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town. The exhibition is a reflection on the influential and often unacknowledged contribution of Black Women to South African art history in the 20th Century. Covering the the period from 1940 to the year 2000, the exhibition stages a cross generational communion of 40 Black women artists from early Modernism to the contemporary period. Portia is a Senior Lecturer in Visual Cultures at the Michaelis School of Fine Arts, University of Cape Town. She is also adjunct curator of Africa and African diaspora at the Hyundai Tate Research Centre at the Tate Modern in London, and is adjunct curator at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town. Nontobeko is a lecturer and Head of the History of Art department in the Wits School of Arts at Wits. Previously she was curator of the Contemporary collection at the Johannesburg Art Gallery and before that was curator at the Durban Institute of Technology Art Gallery. In this discussion, we explore the curatorial tools and strategies that Portia and Nontobeka deployed in this ambitious undertaking to disrupt existing categories of classification while creating a space to contest the erasure of work by Black women artists in South African art history. We examine the way in which they negotiated the negative effects of both invisibility and hyper-visibility on the understanding of Black women's art and the way in which Black feminism informed their curatorial approach. We also discuss the challenge of understanding curation as a form of creative practice in itself, and its importance as means of making previously suppressed work visible to new audiences. See: https://www.norvalfoundation.org/when-rain-clouds-gather/ https://contemporaryand.com/fr/magazines/archives-of-womanhood-and-blackness-in-south-africa/…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Avril Joffe: Engaging Arts Policy with Creative Methodologies 1:00:20

3 years ago1:00:20

1:00:20

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Avril Joffe, currently the postgraduate programme coordinator and previously the Head of the Department of Cultural Policy and Management in the Wits School of Arts. Under Avril’s headship the department was renamed to focus on cultural policy and management, and has developed a range of productive relationships with institutions in both the Global north and south, including Kings College, London; the Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries at Peking University, China; and in South Africa with Business Arts South Africa, the National Arts Council, and the Goethe Institute. We explore Avril’s own trajectory from an MPhil in Developmental Economics at Sussex University to a career as a researcher in labour relations and urban development before moving into the field of cultural policy. In this field Avril is an internationally recognised expert, advising on policy to the South African government and an appointment as an expert member of UNESCO’s Cultural Policy and Governance Facility. We look closely at Avril’s interest in Creative Methodologies as a tool for researchers collecting data, and the ground-breaking international conference on creative methodologies and urban research that Avril co-organised in 2021. We also discuss the function of cultural policy, and whether or not government policy in post-apartheid South Africa has fostered or hindered the creative arts. We weigh up the challenges of working with cultural institutions in authoritarian states such as China, and finally we discuss the ways in which creative artists can productively engage with questions of cultural policy. Check out the following links: Dept of Cultural Policy and Management webpage: https://www.wits.ac.za/wsoa/cultural-policy-and-management/ Dr Nancy Duxbury's website with key papers on creative methodologies: https://ces.uc.pt/en/ces/pessoas/investigadoras-es/nancy-duxbury/apresentacao…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Interlocutor/halfie: Dr George Mahashe on being a Molobedu, an artist and an academic 1:04:57

3 years ago1:04:57

1:04:57

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Dr George Mahashe, a lecturer in Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town, who was recently based at the Geneva Observatory as part of the Swiss Artists-in-Labs programme. George talks about his work at the Observatory and his perspective on the experience as a black African who has a acute awareness of his “distributed sensibilities” as a member of a specific African sociality, the Balobedu, and as an academic and an artist. George was born and raised in Bolobedu in the rural north eastern part of Limpopo Province in South Africa. He first practiced photography as an assistant to a local itinerant photographer before going on to study for a BTech degree in photography. After working as a lecturer and practitioner in commercial photography his awareness of the implications of photography as a colonial representational practice led him into studying the intersections between anthropology, photography and fine arts practice culminating in a PhD in Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town. George used the space offered by PhD research to imagine the concept of khelobedu, from his own point of view, as a member of an African community whose knowledge practices have been studied and marginalised by the colonial academy. Using a combination of unorthodox methods, notably travel and the practice of "ill-discipline", within more established methods such as fine arts play and the participant observation techniques of anthropology, his PhD research challenges the western representational emphasis in photography while employing the film essay and developments of the camera obscure to recognise the dream as a Balodedu technology that can foreground Balobedu subjectivity. Useful links: The text of George's UCT PhD, MaBareBare, a rumour of a dream: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30544 AiL mini-documentary on George at Geneva Observatory: https://vimeo.com/56660581 Omenka interview: https://www.omenkaonline.com/…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Exploring the spaces between - Marcus Neustetter's playful interventions into art, science, and public engagement 1:01:59

3 years ago1:01:59

1:01:59

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Marcus Neustetter, the South African artist, cultural activist, and producer who has been working at the intersection of art, science, technology and public engagement for the last two decades since his graduation with an MAFA from Wits in 2001. They discuss some of the collaborative projects that Marcus has undertaken across these intersections and will unpack key aspects of his critical and playful multi-disciplinary practice that has ranged from conventional drawing and painting to site-specific installations, mobile and virtual interventions, performance art, and socially engaged projects across South Africa and Africa, and internationally. They focus on Marcus's work with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) in Sutherland in the Karoo; his explorations with light and how he has deployed the concept of the "vertical gaze" in his imaginative involvement with Sumbandila, the first South African space satellite. They also probe deeply into how his understanding of the interrelationship between artistic practice, public engagement and science has evolved, and his most recent participation in the Vienna-based transdisciplinary project, The Zone. Links: See Marcus's artist's website: https://marcusneustetter.com/ The Zone project website: https://the-zone.at/…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Irène Hediger & Artists-in_Labs: exploring the unknown across diverse disciplines 56:20

3 years ago56:20

56:20

In this dialogue, I speak to Irène Hediger, the director of the Artists-in -Labs programme based at the Zurich University of the Arts in Switzerland. The programme, which has now been running continuously for the last nineteen years, is one of the most successful Arts-Science initiatives in the world and has initiated and managed over 50 creative engagements between artists and research labs, ranging from CERN to Aquatic Research. The programme is part of the Department of Cultural Analysis (DKV) at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and it works to build sustainable collaboration between artists and scientists of all disciplines, not just in Switzerland but, under Irène’s leadership, has been expanding its field of engagement all around the world, including China, Saudi Arabia, and most recently South Africa. These long-term interdisciplinary and cross-border collaborations provide artists with an opportunity to critically engage with the sciences and their experimental and aesthetic dimensions. This includes explorations of the site of the laboratory, as well as a range of scientific topics, methods and technologies. In this podcast, we discuss the personal path that brought Irène to join Dr Jill Scott as co-director of AiL; the lessons learnt from the first pilot projects; the way that the AiL project has evolved and the lessons that have been learnt about time and how to manage such residencies; the selection process; and the importance of unknowing and creative thinking on the part of both artists and scientists in such collaborative projects. The AiL home page: https://www.zhdk.ch/en/researchproject/ail--artists-in-labs-program-418324 The project also has extensive documentation of all the residencies, with short documentary videos recording the artists and scientists experiences. https://www.artistsinlabs.ch/en/ For details about their current collaborations and projects see the AiL Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/artistsinlabs/…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Art-Science engagements: Karel Nel's brilliant darkness 58:54

3 years ago58:54

58:54

In this dialogue, I explore the challenging and increasingly important concept of Art~Science creative collaboration with one of the leading International practitioners in this field, the South African artist, Karel Nel. Until 2017, Karel was an Associate Professor in the department of Fine Arts at Wits, and is an internationally regarded artist as well as a curator and scholar of African, Asian, and Oceanic art from the late 19th and 20th centuries. This dialogue focuses on his work that crosses the boundaries between science and art and the relationship this work has to his deep interest in traditional, particularly African, art forms. Karel has been the artist-in-residence on the COSMOS astronomical project since the launch of the project in 2004. COSMOS, one of the largest international astronomical projects ever conducted, is an investigation into the origins and evolution of the Universe and Karel has been an integral member of the scientific team. In addition, over much of his career as an artist, Karel has also worked in the field of palaeontology, inspired by the proximity of his family home to the Cradle of Mankind and his creative collaborations with world class palaeontologists at Wits such as Professor Phillip Tobais. Some useful links: Karel’s London gallery, with online versions of exhibition catalogues: https://www.artfirst.co.uk/karel_nel/exhibitions.html The COSMOS project site: https://cosmos.astro.caltech.edu/ Nechama Brodies’s account of the Life of Bone exhibition at Wits Origins Centre. http://witspress.bookslive.co.za/blog/2011/06/17/nechama-brodie-visits-the-life-of-bone-exhibition-at-the-wits-origins-centre/. The exhibition catalogue is available from Wits University Press at the same link or from Wits Libraries. The Feedspot survey of international art school podcasts - the ARA dialogues were rated one of the top 10 by Feedspot users - can be found at https://blog.feedspot.com/art_school_podcasts…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Re-centering Africa through artistic research and decolonial pedagogy: a conversation with Prof Samuel Ravengai 57:02

3 years ago57:02

57:02

In this dialogue, I speak to Prof Samuel Ravengai, a leading exponent of artistic research into African modes of performance and theatre making, a multi faceted mode of enquiry that he theorises as Afroscenology. Samuel is a Zimbabwean born, South African based, scholar and theatre director with a doctorate in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town. He was most recently the head of the Department of Theatre and Performance in the Wits School of Arts, and has just been appointed as the editor of the South African Theatre Journal. He has also just co-edited, with Owen Seda, an important collection of essays in the Palgrave Macmillan Contemporary Performance Interactions series. Entitled Theatre from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe with the subtitle Hegemony, Identity and a contested identity the collection encompasses many of Samuel’s interests which span both research and creative work in the areas of theatre making, directing, theatre historiography, critical theory, post-colonial/ de-colonial theory, performance analysis, cultural studies, performance art, installation, site-specific theatre, curation, race, cultural identity and African studies. In this ARA dialogue we discuss Samuel’s personal background in Zimbabwe, his studies and professional work. We unpack his theory of Afroscenology and its application in the Wits School of Arts where Samuel led the transformation of the old department of Drama into a department of Theatre and Performance. We also look at his new book on the emergence of Zimbabwean theatre in the context of the postcolony and how the iconoclastic writer/poet Dambudzo Marechera can be understood through Afroscenology. Finally, we explore Samuel’s perspective as a Zimbabwean on the possibilities of pan-African engagement and the kind of networks necessary to foster artistic research on the continent. Further reading: Artistic research in Africa: Formulating the theory of Afroscenology - https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/29246…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
Taking contemporary art practice into the forensic lab: a conversation with Dr Kathryn Smith 1:06:32

4 years ago1:06:32

1:06:32

Dr Kathryn Smith is an interdisciplinary visual artist and curator who has moved from an initial education in Fine Arts (with a BAFA and MAFA from Wits) to actively explore applied sciences at the University of Dundee where she earned an MSc in Forensic Art, and a PhD from the Liverpool John Moores University. It is a journey that has taken her from advanced contemporary art practice, she was winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 2004, to a deep engagement with the practicalities and theoretical and ethical challenges of forensic facial imaging. In this dialogue, we discuss the trajectory of Kathryn's career from "crime artist and muse" - starting with her MA on Joel-Peter Witkin - to applied forensic facial reconstruction projects such as the recent Sutherland Reburial Initiative. We also discuss the postgraduate work Kathryn did at the Dundee Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification and the challenges raised by the "Laws of the Face" which she explored in her PhD; as well as her contributions to the Face Lab research group, including the development of the MA Art in Science degree at Liverpool John Moores University. We talk about her return to South Africa and how she is establishing resources to promote forensic imaging skills through VIZ.Lab, as well as new understandings of this scarce skill in the African context, most recently for the Charting the Uncharted exhibition. Finally we explore Kathryn's thinking about the relationship between art and science practice; the management of "pracademic" exchanges between operational, institutional, and research environments; and the notion of knowledge generation in arts-science-technology research. Links: VIZ.Lab: http://www0.sun.ac.za/visualarts/projects/ Stellenbosch University profile of Kathryn: https://www.sun.ac.za/english/Lists/news/DispForm.aspx?ID=7858 The Sutherland Reburial Initiative: https://theconversation.com/how-art-and-technology-helped-bring-faces-of-the-dead-to-life-127844…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - A ludic approach to artistic research - a conversion with Prof Margarete Jahrmann 44:15

4 years ago44:15

44:15

In this dialogue I speak to Professor Margarete Jahrmann, the internationally renowned media artist, artistic researcher and games theorist who has just been appointed head of the new department of Experimental Game Cultures at the Vienna University of Applied Arts. Margarete was previously a Professor in Artistic Research at the Vienna University of Applied Arts and was a Professor of Games Design at the Zurich University of the Arts. We discuss how her background in Game Design led her into the realm of Artistic Research; the different ways in which Artistic Research has been taken up across "Europe"; the challenging relationship between games, contemporary art, and commercial game design; her approach to developing the new Experimental Games Cultures programme; and the challenging work which she has been pursuing during the lockdown. Two of Margarete's recent publications, which we discuss in the podcast, are accessible at: Margarete Jahrmann, 2021. Ludic Meanders through Defictionalization: The Narrative Mechanics of Art Games in the Public Spaces of Politics. In: Narrative Mechanics https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839453452-014 Jahrmann M (2021). Ludics: The Art of Play and Societal Impact. In Franke, B. (ed.): NOT AT YOUR SERVICE. MANIFESTOS FOR DESIGN. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel. pp.319-329. http://www.margaretejahrmann.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/manifestos_200910_jahrmann.pdf Margarete's own website, containing links to all her work is http://www.margaretejahrmann.net/…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
At the centre of the Centre for the Less Good Idea - a conversation with Bronwyn Lace 55:50

4 years ago55:50

55:50

In this dialogue I speak to Bronwyn Lace, perhaps best known as the animateur, and now co-director, of the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, but who is also a visual artist with specificity, responsiveness and performativity as central concerns in her practice. We explore all these aspects of her rich engagement with performance and visual arts in this podcast. In the dialogue we discuss the how the Centre for the Less Good Idea began and the ways that the project has evolved over the first four years of its existence. We also look at how Bronwyn became involved in the Centre and her role as the “animateur”. We examine the evolution of the “Academy" within the Centre and its relationship with orthodox forms of institutionalised arts education in Gauteng. We then go on to discuss Bronwyn's understanding of artistic research and the involvement of the Centre in the international Octopus artistic research project. Finally we discuss Bronwyn’s deep interest in the Arts-Science relationship, her previous Arts-Science projects in South Africa and the ways that she is continuing to investigate this challenging area in the Vienna arts environment. After graduating with a BAFA from the Wits School of Arts in 2004, Bronwyn has developed a combination of introspective, process-led studio practice together with a gregarious, collaborative communal practice operating from her studio in Maboneng and the Centre for the Less Good Idea which she joined William Kentridge in establishing in 2016. Bronwyn is now based in Vienna, Austria, but continues to play an active role in the Centre as the Co-Director and leads the Centre’s development of an Academy and its engagement with international artistic research developments. Important links: https://www.everard-read.co.za/artist/BRONWYN_LACE/biography/ https://lessgoodidea.com/ Arts-Science projects: "My Room at the Centre of the Universe" https://vimeo.com/46345902…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - The aesthetic as a research modality - a conversation with Dr Alex Arteaga 47:57

4 years ago47:57

47:57

In this dialogue I speak to Dr Alex Arteaga, a leading European artist-researcher who works with text, sound, video, photography, essays and installations according to the nature of his projects and their specific research issues. Alex has received professional degrees in piano and theory of music, has a Masters degree in electro-accoustic music. He studied architecture at Berlin University of the Arts and obtained a PhD in philosophy at Humboldt University Berlin. He is currently teaching courses at the Berlin University of the Arts (at the MA Sound Studies and Sonic Arts), film university of Catalonia (ESCAC) and the graduate school of the University of Lapland. As a researcher, he’s connected to the University of Applied Arts Vienna In the dialogue we discuss how Alex's complex background led him into the realm of artistic research and his sense of how artistic research has been taken up across Europe. We look closely at Alex's major projects: the Auditory Research Unit at the Berlin University of the Arts and the relationship between the auditory and the visual in architectural thinking; the Architecture of Embodiment and Alex's non-hierarchical approach to the structure and methodology of the research; and his collaboration with the Austrian media artist Nikolaus Gansterer exploring concepts such as the "presence of situations" in Contingent Agencies. We also engage with the more provocative aspects of Alex's thinking such as his insistence that "aesthetic research" should be distinguished from "artistic research". We cover his involvement in the new African-European collaborative project, Artistic Research and City Spaces which is linking The Wits Schools of Art and Architecture and Planning with a range of different artistic research initiatives in Europe. Finally we discuss Alex's critique of the notion that artistic research produces forms of (alternative) "knowledge" and the implications of this view for strategies of decolonisation.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - Artistic Research in Africa - a conversation with Berhanu Ashagrie Deribew 55:54

4 years ago55:54

55:54

In this ARA dialogue I speak with the Ethiopian artist-researcher who gave the closing address at our ARA2020 Conference. Berhanu is currently a lecturer in the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design at Addis Ababa University and is a doctoral candidate in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Alle School where he was the gold medal winner in his final year, and subsequently studied for his Master of Fine Arts at the Utrecht Graduate School of the Arts in the Netherlands. Berhanu has been engaged with numerous individual and collective artistic projects both inside and outside the studio environment and has exhibited the results of his projects in Ethiopia, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Georgia, Italy, Greece and Spain. In the last few years, Berhanu has been working with a particular emphasis on the human issues that have come from the modernisation of urban spaces, notably in his home city of Addis Ababa. In this discussion, Berhanu talks about the ground-breaking Interdisciplinary Arts Practice MA programme which he helped introduce at the Alle School in 2014. The two year programme allows students from a range of backgrounds - fine arts, music, performing arts, as well as architecture, psychology, and philosophy - to work collaboratively using different research modalities. We also explore Berhanu's own artistic-research projects, notably his contribution to the collective project Despite Dispossession, and his own intervention into the history of dispossession in Addis Ababa: "Care and Become". Finally we explore Berhanu's ideas concerning mourning in the context of the suffering and anger in the global south, and the role of artistic research in such conditions. Useful Links: Despite Dispossession: An Activity Book. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/46498 Closing Address: Artistic Research in Africa-rethinking the" avant-garde" http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/29233…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - Transversing the Rural - a conversation with Dr Same Mdluli 41:35

4 years ago41:35

41:35

In this dialogue I speak to Dr Same Mdluli, who was the recipient of a 2020 ARA grant for her book project: Transversing the Rural: Revisiting the works of South African artist Johannes Mashego Segogela. Dr Mdluli is the Manager and Chief Curator of the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg and an Associate Researcher in the Wits School of Arts. She is an artist, art historian and writer, and holds a PhD in History of Art, and an MA in Arts and Cultural Management, both from Wits University, and a B-Tech degree in Fine Arts (cum laude) from the University of Johannesburg. She has worked as an administrator at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg and other art projects, and has also participated in a number of international residencies including at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and the INHA in Paris. Her research interests are in contemporary African art, black expressive modes and aesthetics as well as the conversations between jazz and visual art. Dr Mdluli also serves as an advisory council member for the South African Arts Council. When Dr Mdluli was appointed to manage the Standard Bank Gallery in 2018, the Bank’s Head of Brand, Sponsorships and Events announced that “Dr Mdluli brings a visionary energy to the role.” She went on to say that “We are convinced that Dr Mdluli will help us take the gallery to a new level of leadership as a stakeholder institution of the art industry in the country and beyond. Her leadership as a respected creative and academic, along with her easy accessibility will surely help to open the doors to more people to fall in love and support art in our country.” All those qualities were very much in evidence during our conversation which ranged from her work as curator, in particular her first major exhibition for the gallery - "A Black Aesthetic" of 2019 - to her engagement with the rural-urban divide in South African art, to her analysis of the obstacles to real transformation in the South African art industry.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - Researching the Arts of Movement - a conversation with Prof Jane Taylor 56:39

5 years ago56:39

56:39

In this dialogue I speak to Professor Jane Taylor, who, together with Nhlanhla Mahlangu, gave the opening performance and dialogue, at the ARA2020 Conference, which was held here at Wits University in January. Jane currently holds the Andrew W. Mellon Chair of Aesthetic Theory and Material Performance at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape where she heads the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects. A highly regarded academic, Jane is also a playwright and author and is a frequent creative collaborator at the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, where she has directed a number of their seasons. Jane has written several plays for puppets, working with the artist William Kentridge and Handspring Puppet Company, notably the internationally celebrated Ubu and the Truth Commission. She has also written a puppet play for the American Renaissance scholar, Stephen Greenblatt, a work interrogating the early history of neurology. Her second novel explores the complex politics of heart transplants in South Africa. Amongst the topics explored in this dialogue are the significance of a Chair of Aesthetic Theory and Material Performance at UWC, a university which historically has not had creative arts disciplines. The research questions prioritised in the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects. The challenges for accepting creative arts as a form of thinking. Aesthetics and a virtual future. The links which support/extend our discussion are - The website of the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects (LoKO): https://www.chrflagship.uwc.ac.za/research-platforms/laboratory-kinetic-objects/ NYT video on the Japanese funerals for robotic family dogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QYDpbLQ-To Video documentation of the complete performance of Pan Troglodyte at the Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg. https://vimeo.com/303661812 Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural (Stanford University Press,2000) Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter (Duke University Press, 2010)…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - The Journal for Artistic Research: a conversation with Dr Michael Schwab 52:19

5 years ago52:19

52:19

In this dialogue I speak to Dr Michael Schwab, the co-initiator and inaugural Editor-in-Chief of JAR, the Journal for Artistic Research. Michael was most recently a keynote speaker at the ARA2020 Conference, on the theme of artistic research in Africa, which was held here at Wits University in January. As a JAR editor and a leading exponent of the 'practice turn in contemporary theory', Michael has been at the forefront of conceptualising the expanding field of artistic research in Europe, and increasingly internationally for more than a decade. Michael is also himself an artist, and an artistic researcher who interrogates post-conceptual uses of technology in a variety of media including photography, drawing, printmaking and installation art. His ARA 2020 keynote address, "Dynamics", can be accessed at http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/29247 The Journal for Artistic Research (JAR), an international, online, Open Access, peer-reviewed journal is available online at https://www.jar-online.net/…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - The Hybrid model of Performance-Research: A conversation with Mark Fleishman 48:11

5 years ago48:11

48:11

In this ARA dialogue I speak with Mark Fleishman, Professor and Head of the Centre for Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, University of Cape Town and artistic director (together with Jennie Reznik and Mandla Mbothwe) of Magnet Theatre, an independent theatre company he established in Cape Town in 1987. Mark has been a leading figure in the development of Performance-Research both in South Africa and Internationally. Since 2008, he has been an active member of the Performance as Research Working Group of the IFTR, and was co-convenor of the group from 2009-2013. His frequently-cited articles have appeared in the South African Theatre Journal, Contemporary Theatre Review, and Theatre Research International. He is also editor of Performing Migrancy and Mobility in Africa: Cape of Flows, in the Studies in International Performance series at Palgrave (2016). At the same time, Mark has been active in professional theatre practice. His works for Magnet involve development projects in urban townships and rural communities using theatre as a tool for social justice and transformation. In this discussion we explore Mark's trajectory from a person primarily involved in theatre practice to becoming an academic and researcher in performance. Mark also expands on the thinking and experiences behind the paper he presented at the ARA2020 conference on artistic research in Africa, at Wits in January, and explains the hybrid model of research that has evolved from his work that spans the fluid space between independent theatre, the university, and the activist community. We also discuss strategic alliances necessary to develop artistic research within the university, and the relationship between performance practice and Sciences and Humanities. Mark also discusses the lessons learnt about North-South relations that have been learnt from teaching performance during the Coronavirus lockdown. Magnet Theatre Google Scholar https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=7m8GG9IAAAA…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - Performance and Research: a discussion with Annette Arlander. 35:46

5 years ago35:46

35:46

In this ARA dialogue I speak with the first ARA artist-in-residence of 2020, Annette Arlander. Professor Arlander is an artist, researcher and a teacher, and one of the pioneers of Finnish performance art, as well as being a trailblazer of artistic research in Scandinavia. As an ARA artisti-in-residence- she will be based in the Theatre and Performance department of the Wits School of Arts for the next two months until 10 April. She has already initiated her residency project, a work she titles "Meeting with Remarkable Trees". Follow the project blog - https://meetingswithtrees.home.blog/ara/ In this wide-ranging discussion, Annette talks about the development of artistic research in Finland, and her role in this development. From her own experience as a theatre practitioner who has moved into a praxis more closely allied with the visual arts tradition, she discussed the complex meanings of "performance" and what this means for understanding performance as research., or research into performance. She also discusses the different types of artistic research, and the crucial difference between presentation and documentation. Finally she talks about her own performance art projects in which she has focused on performing landscape by means of video or recorded voice, moving between the traditions of performance art, video art and environmental art. Annette's own website - with a wealth of links to her academic writings and documentation of her creative works: https://annettearlander.com Useful links: Annette discussing the development of artistic research in the Nordic countries at a Middlesex University colloquium: https://www.artisticdoctorates.com/2019/07/29/what-do-we-mean-by-artistic-research-some-nordic-perspectives-on-artistic-doctorates-by-annette-arlander-uniarts-stockholm/ An Informal presentation of her project, Performing with a Pine Tree, at the Research Days of Academy of Fine Art, University of the Arts Helsinki in : https://vimeo.com/380590461…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - Bones and Dinosaurs: Art/Science collaborations 56:44

5 years ago56:44

56:44

In this ARA dialogue I speak to three Wits academics who have creatively engaged, in both their research and teaching, with the interface between Scientific and Artistic research. My guests are Dr Justine Wintjes and Joni Brenner who were both members of the History of Art department in the Wits School of Arts at the time of this collaborative project, and Prof Jonah Choinere, from the Wits Evolutionary Sciences Institute. Although we explore the routes, professional and personal, that led the three to collaborate across the Arts-Sciences divide, the focus of our discussion is the art-science pilot project which they initiated with postgraduate students in History of Art and Paleontology in 2016 and 2018. In this lively and wide-ranging discussion we cover the following issues: The different ways in which Joni, Justine, and Jonah approached the collaboration, and the factors in their backgrounds that led them to collaborate; How the teaching project developed out of the Life of Bone exhibition curated by Joni Brenner with Elizabeth Burroughs, and Karel Nel in 2011 at the Wits Origins Centre Gallery (and published by Wits University Press in 2011); The similarities and differences between artistic and scientific practice; The value of drawing as a mode of intense observation; The design of the collaborative teaching project and the challenge of scope; The different effects of the project on the arts and science students who participated. The lessons learnt from the collaboration and the ways that the project could be taken forward into future projects.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - Creativity, agency, and African feminisms 46:25

6 years ago46:25

46:25

In this ARA dialogue I speak to Professor Sharlene Khan and Fouad Asfour about the recent African Feminisms (Afems) Conference which was held at the Wits School of Arts from 5 to 7th September. Sharlene and Fouad were both organizers of the conference together with Lynda Gichanda Spencer. Sharlene is an associate professor in the department of Fine Arts at the Wits School of Arts and is a visual artist whose multi-media work focuses on the socio-political realities of a post-apartheid society and the intersectionality of race-gender-class. Fouad is a writer, editor and publisher who organises independent spaces for discourse and artistic collaboration. He is currently a visiting research associate in the Wits School of Arts. The conference is the third in a series of annual events that bring together African feminists for two days of intellectual engagement, art, and networking. With an insistence on the centrality of creative practice to African feminist thinking, the conference was an intense amalgam of conventional academic forms such as academic papers, keynotes, panel discussions together with performances, art exhibitions, creative dialogues, and book launches. Amongst the topics covered in this dialogue are: the background and history of the Afems conferences; the relationship between the history of the conference and intergenerational black feminist scholarship in Africa; the central role of creativity in black women's creation of self and identity; and the challenges of staging the conference on Wits campus during a turbulent week of politics, and particularly gender-based politics in the city and South Africa; the plans for the future of the conference, including an innovative approach towards crowd-funding.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - New developments in Artistic Research in Europe 40:22

6 years ago40:22

40:22

In this ARA dialogue, I discuss new developments in the European space of Artistic Research with Professor Stefan Winter, Head of the Institute of Artistic Research at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF in Potsdam, Germany. Prof Winter also represents Germany in a new institutional development: the European Forum for Advanced Practices, an inclusive research network originating not just from universities but also from NGOs, community-based organisations, independent research entities, museums, and a wide range of arts academies with a focus on emergent forms of artistic- and practice-based research. In this dialogue Prof Winter discusses a number of important issues, notably the place of Artistic Research as a producer of distinct forms of knowledge; the role the AR can play in relation to scientific and technological knowledge formations; particular instances of AR in action; and the potential of AR for the decolonising project in South African universities.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - the innovative new PhD programme in Drama for Life 42:59

6 years ago42:59

42:59

In this ARA dialogue, we discuss the new PhD programme at Drama for Life in the Wits School of Arts. This programme, launched in 2017, has just won the 2019 Wits Faculty of Humanities Individual Teaching and Learning Award for Postgraduate Teaching. The designer of the programme, Dr Petro Janse van Vuuren, and the head and founder of Drama For Life, Warren Nebe, are in discussion with Prof Christo Doherty, the head of Arts Research in the Wits School of Arts. They discuss the role of postgraduate research in the strongly activist DFL department and the way in which the design of the new PhD programme has created a scholarly community of practice amongst researchers across Africa using digital communication technologies together with a decolonial approach to pedagogy in Africa.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

1
ARA Podcast - Ethnographies and Art Practices as Research in Africa 48:11

6 years ago48:11

48:11

In this ARA dialogue, we look at the changing relationship between ethnographies and art practice as research in Africa. The dialogue was prompted by the recent workshop on African ethnographies which was organised by Dr Jung Ran Annachiara Forte and Prof Sakhumzi Mfecane from the Department of Anthropolog and Sociology at the University of the Western Cape as part of the ongoing African Critical Inquiry Programme. The workshop was intended to prompt reflection around the concept and practices of ethnograpy which the workshop organisers describe as "slippery, changing, dense, polysemic, and composed of a plurality of voices". And in a formulation that resonates with the manner in which artistic research practice is often understood, they describe contemporary African ethnography as enabling "conceptual work that transcends simple divides between the empirical, the methodological, and the theoretical." Of particular relevance to these dialogues, one of the major aims of the workshop was "to re-rethink ethnography from the African continent." http://www.asauk.net/2019-african-critical-inquiry-workshop-african-ethnographies/ In this ARA dialogue, three Wits colleagues who attended the workshop will be discussing the changing relationship between ethnographies and artistic practice as research with particular reference to their own work at Wits in the light of the African Ethnographies workshop. Prof Brett Pyper, Principal Investigator on the Arts Research Africa project and Head of the Wits School of Arts is in discussion with Dr Nosipho Mngomezulu and Dr George Mahashe, both lecturers in Wits Anthropology.…

Arts Research Africa Dialogues

7 years ago42:17