Pod talk x 2 with Samuel Girma - The Aesthetics of Blackness.
The talks will be in English and Swedish.
"The Nigerian poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo `writes in Questions for Ada`:
So, here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
Never enough for both.
These words have been stuck with me for many years and I have tried to make peace with my own feelings of belonging(s). I am amazed at the Black diaspora around the world. Deeply separated and yet deeply connected.
I am also deeply ”fascinated” by the way whiteness operates. It itself is a diaspora (for different reasons) yet it has manifested a global hegemonic position that makes it the default ”human race” and its epistemological habits have shaped the aesthetics of power and domination.
As part of my artistic practices, as well as my life as a Black person I am always looking for a ( global) aesthetics of Blackness. Join us in this podcast consisting of two episodes where we depart from the exhibition Neither Here Nor Here, curated by Mmabatho Thobejane and Nontokozo Tshabalala and where we will discuss the formations of aesthetics of a Blackness, wherever it may be, home or in the Diaspora. "
/Samuel Girma
Samuel Girma is a curator in film and art, community organizer and Blackqueer activist based in Stockholm.
Guests MAY 26 (Both talks will be released on May 26):
Judith Kiros. Judith is a poet, journalist and Ph.D. student in literature at Karlstad University. Her debut book “O”, partially poetry and essay, is an extensive and rhythmic deconstruction of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello. The talk will be in Swedish.
Monica Miller. Monica is Professor of English and Africana Studies at Barnard College and has written Slaves To Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diaspora Identity. The talk will be in English.
Links to the talks will be published here in the event and on Konsthallen Blå Ställets fb-page.
"What the artworld needs now" - The Aesthetics of Blackness is organised as part of Kulturhuset Blå Ställets residency within Allmänningen (The Common Room) at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, Gothenburg University. Allmänningen is a Vinnova funded research project developing and piloting alternative models for university usership and collaboration.
