Africa Initiative

African Realms of Knowledge, Memory, and Contestation

On February 29-March 1, 2008, the African Realms of Knowledge, Memory and Contestation working group will host a conference entitled "New Geographies in Contemporary African Art." Invitees include scholars, artists, and critics from various locales in Africa, Europe, Canada and the U.S. who will participate in a provocative interdisciplinary engagement of thinkers and practitioners. The symposium’s title suggests something about the themes that participants will explore. Among these are issues of translocality, transgression, and notions of place both within the continent and vis-à-vis Africa and the rest of the world. Participants have been asked to consider that the trope of geographies encompasses Africa both as a physical place, and as a discursive place of memory and affiliation.  Presentations will range in format from twenty-minute presentations to panel discussions and interviews.

“New Geographies in Contemporary African Art” takes stock of the evolving issues at play in African visual discourse today and will stimulate new questions addressing issues of physical place and the discursive space of memory and affiliation. Scholars, artists, and students at Harvard and in the Boston area also will be participating. When the group of conference participants is finalized they will be posted. A separate web page for the conference will be linked here.

The African Realms of Knowledge, Memory and Contestation working group is also planning a round table discussion in April 2008 with Ntone Edjabe, activist art critic and editor of Chimurenga, and the Congolese performance artist Thierry Nlundu of Le Groupe Amos.