Decolonising Archives Research Residencies Symposium
Decolonising the Archives is a collaborative initiative at University of the Arts London (UAL), developed by UAL Decolonising Arts Institute in partnership with UAL Archives and Special Collections Centre (ASCC). Conceived as a 9-month residency programme beginning in January 2020 and extended in response to the pandemic, this online symposium presents the practice research projects developed by Dr Elisa Adami, Dr Khairani Barokka, Dr Ana Gonzalez Rueda and Dr Mohammad Namazi over the last year.
UAL Decolonising Arts Institute has been in development since late 2018, and is currently in pilot phase. Conceived as a de-centred, porous and evolving space, the Institute seeks to challenge colonial histories and imperial legacies, to recognize past and ongoing work, and to drive cultural, social and institutional change – through practice and research. Decolonising the Archives builds on ASCC’s ongoing residency programme (2017-2022), supported by the Museums, Galleries and Collections Fund ( Research England), and UAL Library’s wider initiatives to decolonise the curriculum. The collaborative partnership with the Decolonising Arts Institute seeks to place questions of decolonisation and decolonial praxes at the core of collections practice and research.
Programme
11.00 Welcome (susan pui san lok, Decolonising Arts Institute)
11.10 Khairani Barokka
11.40 Researchers in conversation and Q+A (moderated by Gustavo Grandal Montero, Chelsea College of Arts)
12.00 Comfort break
12.10 Elisa Adami
12.40 Researchers in conversation and Q+A (moderated by Sarah Mahurter, ASCC)
13.00 Lunch break
13.45 Welcome back
13.50 Ana Gonzalez Rueda
14.20 Researchers in conversation and Q+A (moderated by Steven Ball, Central Saint Martins )
14.40 Comfort break
14.50 Mohammad Namazi
15.20 Researchers in conversation and Q+A (moderated by Judy Willcocks, CSM Museum & Study Collection)
15.40 Closing reflections (susan pui san lok)
15.50 Close
Speakers
Dr Elisa Adami
Elisa Adami recently completed her PhD at the Royal College of Art in London. Her dissertation focused on radical historiographical practices in the work of Lebanese artists of the postwar generation. She teaches at the Royal College of Art and Kingston University and is the editorial assistant of the book series Research/Practice, published by Sternberg Press. Her writings have appeared in academic publications such as Journal of Visual Culture and Third Text, and she is a regular contributor to Art Monthly. She is co-founder and co-director of Mnemoscape, an online publishing platform and network dedicated to contemporary art practices exploring issues of memory, history and the archival impulse.
Dr Khairani Barokka
Khairani Barokka is an Indonesian writer, artist and Research Fellow with the UAL Decolonising Art Institute, whose work has been presented extensively, in fifteen countries. Among Okka’s honours, she is Modern Poetry in Translation’s Inaugural Poet-In-Residence, and was an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow. Okka is co-editor of Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back(Nine Arches), author-illustrator of Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis; Vietnamese translation published by AJAR Press), and author of debut poetry collection ROPE (Nine Arches Press). Her last exhibition was Annah: Nomenclature at the ICA.
Dr Ana Gonzalez Rueda
Ana Gonzalez Rueda completed her PhD at the University of St Andrews in 2019 with a thesis entitled “Inherent Pedagogies: Critical Approaches to Exhibition Making in the 2000s”. In 2018-2019, Ana was awarded a Deviant Practice research grant at the Van Abbemuseum to develop a project which introduced feminist materialist pedagogies to the dynamics of the museum’s contemporary art collection display. Ana also teaches at the School of Philosophy and Art History at University of Essex and is a Research Assistant for the EULAC Museums project (University of St Andrews) which focuses on community museology in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Dr Mohammad Namazi
Mohammad Namazi is an artist, researcher, and educator based in London. In 2019 he completed a PhD at UAL Chelsea College of Arts, with a subject emphasis on digital humanities — the notion of encounter within a networked culture. His inter-disciplinary studio-practice manifests through means of decoloniality, deconstruction, collaboration, process, unlearning and telematics systems within social and cultural realms. Namazi is a member of the Critical Practice research cluster, and a visiting lecturer at UAL. His writing has been published by Intellect Books, and he has previously exhibited at venues such as NEoN Digital Festival, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin Transart Triennale, the Barbican, and Flat Time House.
Booking
FREE, booking essential. The symposium will take place online via Teams. A link will be circulated to registered attendees on the morning of the event.
Image: Archive Research by Damilola Ayo-Vaughan 2020 © Alys Tomlinson
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