Talk past(present/future)––––present(future/past)–––– future(past/present) Lola Olufemi

Using an experimental mode, in this presentation Lola Olufemi will explore ongoing research related to the utility, location and efficacy of the imagination in black cultural production in the UK, with a specific focus on the relationship between imagining, political organising and temporality.

It will use the archive as basis for an argument against chronology in order to illustrate the affective possibilities inherent in temporal chaos, fragmentation and an iterative orientation to the past/present/future.

Biography

Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and Stuart Hall foundation researcher from London based in the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media at the University of Westminster. Her work focuses on the uses of the feminist imagination and its relationship to cultural production, political demands and futurity. She is author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power (Pluto Press, 2020), Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (Hajar Press, 2021) and a member of ‘bare minimum’, an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective. Alongside writing, she facilitates reading groups, workshops, occasionally curates and is volunteer co-ordinator at the Feminist Library.

Image Credit: Hana Stephens