Talk How do we keep the channels open with all this salt? Cairo Clarke

Cairo Clarke shares reflections on the shape her research has taken over the past year as her practice began to spill into territory outside the curatorial sphere. Piecing together fragments from archive visits, conversations with family, readings and materials she has come into contact with through this period of research as well as the everyday conditions that have continued to shape it.

The event title and line of inquiry is a quote from Alexis Pauline Gumbs in conversation with Christina Sharpe for the 39th issue of The Funambulist.

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Biography

Cairo Clarke is a curator and writer based in London and Naples. Her work is informed by slowness, it centers forms of knowledge production and dissemination that slip between the cracks, are formed on unstable ground and take on multiple temporalities. Supporting strands of theorising taking place in autonomous spaces and holding space for the mess.

Cairo has worked closely with artists to develop and share instances of work across film, performance, printed matter and events as well as sharing self-led curatorial projects across numerous sites including Pompeii Commitment: Archeological Matters, Deptford X and LUX. In 2019 she launched SITE, a publication and curatorial project exploring alternative encounters with artist practice and the dissemination of research. Cairo is the 2020/21 Curatorial Fellow at LUX. Previously she was a member of The Black Curriculum, and continues to work in educational spaces.

Image: Photo taken on Albert Docks Liverpool 2021 courtesy of Cairo Clarke.