HA
5 September 2024

Possible Histories and Blazing Forms*

CONVERSATIONS ON ART FROM AFRICA AND THE DIASPORA — SESSION II

Public Event | 5 September 2024 | 9.30 - 16.00 | Grotezaal, Wereldmuseum Leiden

The collections of the Wereldmuseum hold both historic and contemporary art from across the African continent as well as the African Diaspora. We have been curating these works in temporary and permanent exhibitions for several decades. While we have long been critical of our curatorial and collecting practices, we are currently in a focussed moment of assessing our own work in relation to the broader field of the writing of (art) histories today. Moreover, we are aware that our self-questioning comes at a time of growing demands for restitution of objects and for the decolonizing of museums. 

For this conversation series, we are interested to ask how curating African art in the present can respond to these demands. As we rethink our own practices, we are also interested to trace some approaches to writing and curating art from Africa that emerged within art historical and artistic disciplines over the last two centuries. We want to critically reflect on early explorations of primitivism to more recent World Art studies (in Europe), and the different genealogies of African Art Histories in the USA or in Europe. In these considerations, we also want to ask how the discipline of Art History approaches art from Africa by scholars from and on the continent. Through this work, we hope that we can foster new practices for thinking about arts from Africa and its diaspora.

Confirmed participants include: Aude Mgba, Cecile Fromont, Cheryl Finley, Ernestine White-Mifetu, Victoria Collis-Buthelezi, Simon Njami

 

Image credit: Hélène Akouavi Amouzou, Autoportrait, 2008, work part of Wereldmuseum collection, 7035-4
* "Blazing forms" is a quotation from the poem The Convert (1960), by Margaret Danner
Photo credit: James Gallagher

Location

Wereldmuseum Leiden (Grote zaal)

Steenstraat 1,

2312 BS Leiden

Programme

Morning Session:

9.30 - 10.00 Check-in and registration
10.00 - 10.15 Welcoming remarks by Wayne Modest
10.20 - 10.40 Presentation by Cécile Fromont
10.45 - 11.05 Presentation by Ernestine White-Mifetu
11.10 - 11.30 Discussion 
11.30 - 11.45 Coffee/Tea Break
11.50 - 12.10 Presentation by Cheryl Finley
12.15 - 12.35 Presentation by Aude Christel Mgba
12.40 - 13.00 Discussion

 

13.00 - 13.45 Lunch Break

 

Afternoon Session:

13.50 - 14.10 Presentation by Simon Njami
14.15 - 14.35 Presentation by Victoria Collis-Buthelezi
14.40 - 15.00 Discussion
15.00 - 15.15 Coffee/Tea Break
15.20 - 15.40 Azu Nwagbogu introduction to In Brilliant Light exhibition
15.40 - 16.00 Discussion and closing

 

About the Speakers

EWM
Ernestine White-Mifetu
Link
Aude Christel Mgba
Aude Christel Mgba
Link
CF
Cécile Fromont
Link
SN
Simon Njami
Link
Victoria Collis-Buthelezi
Victoria Collis-Buthelezi
Link
CF
Cheryl Finley
portrait by Gediyon Kifle.
Link
AN
Azu Nwagbogu
Link