Workshop ON INDEPENDENCE AND THE AMBIVALENCE OF PROMISE at the CCA, Lagos

An interesting call for applications arrived in my inbox today via Bisi Silva of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos. Here it is:

ON INDEPENDENCE AND THE AMBIVALENCE OF PROMISE

About the Program

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos in fulfilment of its objectives, has over the past two years presented an innovative programme of exhibitions, talks, seminars, workshops and events reaching out to a local, African and global audiences.

We are pleased to present the 2010 programme, On Independence and The Ambivalence of Promise. We start this landmark year for Nigeria and the African continent with an ambitious and innovative art photography workshop focusing not so much on technique but on methodology, critical thinking, and conceptual ideas and their implementation.

On Independence and the Ambivalence of Promise celebrates in 2010 the World Cup coming to Africa for the first time, African Cup of Nations and most importantly the 50th anniversary of independence from colonial rule of seventeen African countries including Nigeria. The intellectual underpinning of the project questions the narrow framework of postcolonial critical thinking and ideas, and considers dreams, realities and possibilities for full independence that have engaged people and communities across languages, cultures and regions - focusing on the concerns of gender, religion, nation building processes and aesthetics in theory and art. Working through guilt, self-analysis and rethinking the artificial correlation between nation states, the project suggests a new in depth approach reflecting on social concerns and questioning ones relationship to the larger totality.

Who can participate?

This workshop is open to artists in Nigeria and around Africa with visible commitment to their professional artistic practice and media. They can be working in any media - painting, sculpture, textile, ceramics, photography, video and new media, performance art, writing, theatre and dance.

Workshop Timeline

The workshop will be an intensive 30-day programme facilitated by experienced local and international artists, critics, and curators.

• From February 8th to March 6th, 2010.

• Workshop sessions will commence daily at 9.00am and end at 6.00pm

Participants must be available for the full 30 days. Absence for more than 3 days will result in the loss of participation and non-refundable fee

Workshop facilitators include some of the most experienced international artists and curators:

• Phillipe Pirotte (Belgium/Switzerland)

• Heta Kuchka (Finland)

• Giovanni Carmini (Switzerland)

• Simon Njami (Cameroon)

• Gabriella Salgado (Argentina/UK)

• Tam Fiofori (Nigeria)

• Daniella Wennberg (Norway)

• Miriam Backstrom (Sweden)

• Jide Adeniyi Jones (Nigeria)

• Rosangela Renno (Brazil)

• Senam Okudzeto (Ghana)

• Mats Stjernstedt (Sweden)

• Carrie Schneider (USA)

• Elina Brotherus (Finland)

• Akinbode Akinbiyi (Nigeria/Germany)

Project conceived and developed by Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos

Project curators: Aura Seikkula and Bisi Silva

Project Co-ordinator: Antawan I. Byrd

For more information please contact Antawan Byrd antawan@ccalagos.org

Tel 234 702 836 7106

Seventh Cadbury Fellows Workshop

Seventh Cadbury Fellows Workshop

1 March 2010 - 8 May 2010

The Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham (www.cwas.bham.ac.uk) invites applications to contribute to the 2010 Cadbury Fellows’ Workshop, which will focus on popular culture in contemporary urban Africa.

Three visiting fellows from Africa will be appointed to participate in a ten-week schedule of seminars, discussion groups, and other activities. The workshop will culminate in an international conference, 6-8 May 2010 jointly organised with Institute of Anthropological Research in Africa (IARA), University of Leuven, within the framework of AEGIS.

One aim of the Fellowship scheme is to assist new scholars to develop a research paper and bring it to publication, and the conference papers will form the basis of a special issue of Africa, the journal of the International African Institute.

Fellowships will cover return air-fare, accommodation and living costs for a period of ten weeks. The deadline for applications for fellowships is 1 November 2009.

Themes

We welcome contributions that explore the material and symbolic dimensions of urban forms of popular culture. Our central questions for the workshop are:

· How do music and broadcasting media in their material, embodied and symbolic forms participate in the constitution of African urban experience?

· How do urban public spaces and infrastructure in Africa generate specific kinds of practices, discourses and expressions in urban popular culture?

We understand ‘popular culture’ as a zone of ambiguity, constituting a cacophony of sounds and images, and producing variegated narratives, icons and realities. We take 'urban' to be a shifting and relative term, which can include small towns as well as major cities. Against this background, the workshop will explore the following themes:

Space, infrastructure and zones of entertainment

· How do zones of entertainment shape urban life worlds?

· How do music and media events fashion cityscapes in temporary or permanent ways?

· How do local, transnational and international celebrities move around African cities, towns and villages, whether physically or in the imagination?

· Where and when do people flock to witness musicians and media celebrities? How are these events controlled by state officials, ethnic and religious leaders and other social authorities?

Power and popular culture

· What is the place of music and broadcasting in actions of resistance, propaganda and censorship programmes? And how do producers, brokers and audiences adapt to it?

· How and when do politicians and religious leaders become celebrities?

· Where are musicians and media producers (actors, hosts, journalists) positioned on the various axes of power and authority?

· What kind of new social categories emerge in the margins of music and media? We can think of journalists, dubbers and translators, shop keepers, etc. Which social categories make a livelihood out of music and media production and events? And how can they achieve this?

Time and music/media

· Do music and media genres structure the rhythms of city life?

· What do songs and media productions reveal about memory, nostalgia and hope? How are past, present, and future imagined, expressed and brought about via popular culture?

· How do genres, content and celebrities produce a rift between the generations? And, conversely, in what ways do young and old collectively engage with music and media?

Visceral aesthetics and the city

· How does popular culture contribute to ‘the urban feel’ and the imagination of urbanism?

· How ‘urban’ are the aesthetics of music and media that we find in African cities and towns? Do certain music and media productions produce an ‘African urban style’?

· How do the visceral aesthetics of certain music and media genres tie in with larger, more encompassing symbolic worlds such as religion, politics, and/or the market?

· What kind of embodied experiences do music and media producers and audiences yearn for, appreciate, or jettison?

Structure

The Cadbury Fellows’ Workshop and conference will be led by Karin Barber, Katrien Pype and David Kerr. The 10-week programme runs from 1 March 2010 to 8 May 2010. A range of events is planned, among them:

- seminars in which participants present their on-going research

- meetings including reading group, film screenings and visiting speakers

- a three day visit to the Institute of Anthropological Research in Africa (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium), where the Fellows will interact with anthropologists working on urbanism in sub-Saharan Africa- a three day working party exploring popular texts, with visitors from IARA

- the international conference (6-8 May 2010), in which the three Cadbury Fellows and other researchers will present their work.

How to apply to participate in the conference (6-8 May 2010)

Enquiries and applications are very welcome.

If you wish to present a paper, send a 250-word abstract to David Kerr (d.kerr@bham.ac.uk ) by 1 February 2010. An additional, more detailed call for papers will be circulated in due course. Participants will normally be expected to cover their own travel and accommodation costs. However, funds will be available to support a small number of invited speakers.

More information:

Structure

Who is eligible for a Cadbury Fellowship?

How to apply for a Cadbury Fellowship

How to participate in the Conference

Artists Workhop in Ghana July 2010

I’ve finally got around to getting myself on the mailing list of one of the professional discussion groups/forums and here comes the first gem which I’ll also email to my Nigerian artist/art education contact (they probably know anyway, well connected as they are but you never know …). Hope that’s of any use to anybody out there!

An artists' workshop that will be held in Ghana in July of 2010. The workshop will be hosted by Cross Cultural Collaborative, Inc. - an educational non-profit that encourages interaction between creative people from different cultures. The workshop will be held from July 11-24 outside of Accra, Ghana and will bring together artists, designers, and indigenous and contemporary potters from around the world.

The workshop will be facilitated by Barbara Allen, an American potter and Kwao Adipah, a Ghanaian educator.

The workshop itinerary will include:

* a visit to Vume, a traditional pottery village made famous by Michael Cardew

* a visit to a contemporary ceramic studio

* an opportunity to fire and build a paper kiln

* visits to galleries and museums

* a rare opportunity to work with indigenous house painters from northern Ghana.

Inquiries can be made to: aba@culturalcollaborative.org, also cf. http://www.culturalcollaborative.org