Study Day Anticolonial Thinking on Archives, Water and Climate Justice

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As part of the public programme for the British Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, iniva presents Unseen Guests, a commission of eight artists based in the UK and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) working across new media, audiovisual and writing, with the aim to create new works in dialogue with the films of artist John Akomfrah.

Developing new commissions are the artists Ibiye Camp, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Gladys Kalichini, Rodrigo Nava Ramirez, Shamica Ruddock and Helena Uambembe, alongside writers Yaa Addae and Alexis G. Tayie. They will be joined for the day by Matteo Stocco of the Metagoon project, and Maria Madeira, featured artist of the inaugural pavilion for Timor-Leste. 

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The Unseen Guests Study Day in Venice will bring together iniva’s commissioned artists and Venice’s scholarly and visual arts community. It will facilitate a shared exploration of climate justice and anticolonial thinking, putting particular emphasis on diverse forms of archival research with relevance to the theme of water. 

The Unseen Guests group of artists and writers have been working together with Pan-African cultural archives throughout the UK and SSA, investigating documentations of anticolonial events and testimonies of climate change. By bridging conversations that depart from diverse perspectives, the Study Day will become a catalyst for forging lasting connections and networks while fostering future collaborations within and beyond the event. It is designed to allow for collaborative reflections and investigations of John Akomfrah’s contribution to the British Pavilion, while approaching the wider context and themes of the Venice Biennale.

As part of the cultural programme to accompany in the context of the British Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, with the support of British Council and Arts Council England, the Unseen Guests Study Day in Venice is presented by iniva, in collaboration with NICHE and the UNESCO Chair at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Department of Art History at The Open University (United Kingdom).

Full programme TBA

Study Day, Ca’ Bottacin, Main Hall, 10.00-16.00

10.00-10.45 : Welcome and introduction

10.45-11.15:  Introduction to the British Pavilion

11.15-12.15: Climate justice and water justice

12.15: Lunch break

13.15-14.15: Anticolonial struggle & Pan-African Thinking

14.15-15.15: Archival research and water as archive

15.15: Closing remarks – Sepake Angiama

15.30-16.00: Collective Discussion

About the partners:

iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) is an evolving visual arts organisation dedicated to nurturing and disseminating radical and emergent contemporary artistic practice centring Global Majority, African, Asian, & Caribbean diaspora perspectives. For 30 years it has been iniva’s mission to be an agent for change in the cultural sector, advocating for social justice through the support of artists and communities as well as via the forms of exchange that advance our desire to understand each other and respect the cultural values that challenge cultural ‘norms’. 

THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice aims to produce transdisciplinary environmental scholarship and public engagement initiatives where environmental humanities can play a major role. From the unique vantage point of Venice, a city vulnerable to sea-level rise but also a living laboratory for a balanced ecosystem and a plural global community, NICHE fosters dialogue between leading scholars, scientific innovators, artists and writers, journalists and public stakeholders for a new alliance between humanities, social life, and natural sciences, with a local and global impact. With a strong focus on water, NICHE critically engages with waterscapes by pioneering the new methodologies necessary for challenging perceptions of water and relevant political decision-making. 

THE OPEN UNIVERSITY‘s  Department of Art History at The Open University is one of the UK’s largest communities of students and specialists in the history of art and visual cultures at the intersections of anti-/post-colonial thought and climate justice, with particular expertise in art and ecologies of the majority world over a wide historical span. Taking a critical and transdisciplinary approach, the group builds on the pioneering work of the pre-eminent intellectual Stuart Hall, who was Professor of Sociology at the Open University. The Open University partnership is led by Professor Leon Wainwright from the OU on the occasion of his visiting scholarship at NICHE.