Minutes of the Intertwining Histories Skype 4/7/2017

INTERTWINING HI/STORIES SKYPE MEETING

7.04.2017

MINUTES by MAJA (pdf)

present in Joburg (Africa Cluster meeting): Kito Derrick (Kampala), Rangoato Hlasane (Johannesburg); David Andrew (Johannesburg); Christian Nyampeta (Nyanza), Patrick Mudekereza (Lubumbashi), Zachary Rosen (Maseru), George Shire (Harare), Andrea Thal (Cairo), Hussein ElHaji (Cairo), Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa (Kampala), Puleng Plessie (Johannesburg), James Mokoka (Wits School of Arts technical manager)

on skype: Nora Landkammer (Geneva/Zürich), Carla Bobadilla (Vienna), Maja Renn (Geneva/Zürich), Olivier Desvoignes (Geneva/Zürich)

INTRODUCTION

Nora:

Next steps in the Intertwining Hi/Stories project: e-mails from Carla concerning preparations of the Vienna Festival. In which way everybody in the histories cluster would like to engage in preparing the workshops during the festival (forming groups that will discuss transversal topics of their research)?
Questions concerning project organization and communication
Deadlines (Olivier: payments, documents)

VIENNA FESTIVAL

Carla explains the content of the e-mail:

Ideas for structure of the festival, coming from the meeting in February with the festival organization group.
Feedbacks on the São Paulo meeting: how can we work together in a better way?

The festival, same as in São Paulo, will consist of two parts: internal and semi-public working sessions. Every day there will be an internal meeting in the morning and a semi-public event in the afternoon.

Thursday is a ‚free day‘ for local networking and visiting places.

A History Telling event will take place every day at 15:00, one person from our group or from the local scene will tell a story related to education.

Internal workshops will be of two kinds:

First kind: to see materials and to analyze how to work with them. It will start on Monday afternoon.

Nora: internal workshops will be on crossing of researches, transversal topics. There are already some proposals for such transversal workshops. Examples: the figure of Herbert Read (possible connections with the Kampala working group), Wild Child - focus on historical exoticization of the creative child in Europe and the infantilization of the artist in the colonies.

(The second kind was not explained)

George: Speaking from the Harare working group. We could situate our work across three themes: intertwining histories, colonies and popular education. Each of us has their case study and research goals. We will see how they can be related to already listed themes.

Carla: Claudia Hummel from Berlin will work on colonial themes in school books. (…) (Zachary: Maseru would also be interested in that content).

George: Sending around a summary would help to find crossing points.

Carla: The semi-public part: an idea from Claudia Hummel: There is a local group in Vienna in the Department of Art Education at the Academy of Fine Arts. They are working on ideas of colonialism and racism in school books. Internal work could be connected and exchanged with the local groups in Vienna.

Yuk Lin in Hong Kong is interested to work on importations of German ideas on art education. She wants to work with Vienna group on Franz Cižek, work with archives.

Olivier: It would be important at some point to understand Vienna art ecosystem before arriving, in order for everyone to locate their own working group interest in the local context.

Nora: One more workshop idea: reception of Paulo Freire. Those who have other ideas about a subject or would like to join an idea already formulated should write to Carla.

AFRICA CLUSTER MEETING

Andrea: We spent this week three days presenting to each other the state of the research and developments since the last time in São Paulo. We also realized more connections between our work. Then we had a day to talk about the festival: book contributions have been asked to make, finances, learning units, possible contributions to the festival. We thought about the idea of a festival as a site for learning that can also take a political stand in the sense of how it engages with the local community, forms of collaboration and collective practices that come out of it. A new connection that came up is thinking around the role of design education and how it relates to other research we do (for example Kito and Emma in Kampala). It’s also something that came up in the Cairo group, historically. It links to the division between arts and crafts. We also have a public program here. We spent a morning working on a 50 meter + timeline in a semi-public space in a school of education here in Johannesburg. It was place outdoor, next to the campus library. Everyone added dates to the timeline that already exists in South Africa. (Olivier: we want to see the pictures). In the afternoon we had a public session and presented what we are working on. Today we are meeting with students who work with Ra on Medu Art ensemble and tonight we will dance.

Christian: There are many newly gained insights. It was very experimental and enriching. Time is needed to reflect upon it to see how it will distill into forms that can be used in Vienna.

Andrea: We have also developed a culture of talking and working with each other. What is discussed a lot in our group are sonic cultures: ‚A song is never the same when you perform it, it’s always telling a story in a different way‘. Our group is developing a way of interacting with the public that has quite a degree of improvisation and at the same time has more of a solid base it draws from now. Festival as a temporary constellation of something coming together.

(…)

Nora: I’m very keen to see the documentation of the timeline. Your working format fits very well with that idea that we developed until now. We don’t have such a scripted plan of content that will be presented, but rather plan organizing internal working groups and then opening them to public.

Cedrik Nzolo who teaches at the art school in Kinshasa and is also a designer and a writer is introduced and gives his feedback. They make a working group, and want to be part of the project (Africa Cluster).

Emma: 'Making visible histories' has to be done with caution. In Uganda there is the danger of 'a revival' of the ghost, instead of an exorcism. I need to think how to guarantee how the engagement can be critical reflexive.

(Others give their feedbacks on the Africa Cluster meeting.)

Ra: Create critical reflective space around history. Students worked on the timeline. Sensitively (intersectional) engaging collectively with history. Remixing someones timeline. The experience with the timeline in Johannesburg: it made us 'remix our timelines', remix the history of the 20^th century. (…) Between now and the Shaking Histories festival we can continue to work on the question of collectivity.

Christian: (…) We practice here to present while we work and work while we present. Public programs staged so far have been working sessions. That speaks to the wish of opening the festival as a school.

Patrick: It was important for as in the way we are looking at 1920s to hear this experience of naming, un-naming, transforming, not transforming, reforming, not reforming (…).

Nora: How are you documenting all this?

 Andrea: Audio, photography and video. I have encouraged everyone to upload their work to the internal area Africa Cluster but we can also upload them to Intertwining HiStories or figure out a way with Colivre to make things accessible in two places in the same time.

CURRENT STATE OF THE TIMELINE TOOL FOR INTERTWINING HISTORIES

Nora: The tool will be on Colivre, on the Histories Cluster page. It will serve to upload, in a structured way documents with description, keywords for the Un/Chronological Timeline.

Olivier: We work with keywords list created in São Paulo.

PAYMENTS

Olivier: We are late with payments for two reasons:

First we need to send the contracts (which is complicated administrative process)
Working plan and summary of the first work package are missing

 First payment will be sent this weekend. Before the next payment the contracts will be sent. Summaries of the 1st research phase and the updates on the plans of the 2^nd research phase need to be sent, soon as possible. It is very important because of the Board meeting with Mercator Foundation. The content should be also shared with the working team on Colivre.

According to Sophie summaries from three groups are missing: Lubumbashi, Nyanza, Johannesburg.

Andrea: The existing information, that was reported to Pro Helvetia can be sent by tomorrow. It contains information for Lubumbashi, Johannesburg and Maseru. Nyanza still needs to send the report (Christian will be informed).

All has to be sent to microsillions e-mail and to Sophie.

Maja: Nyanza on Colivre group is empty. Christian needs join and to upload contents.

(Andrea will talk to Christian on that.)

Andrea: Cairo group situation is getting very intense in terms of what we have to send. We are getting e-mails from Intertwining HiStories although we are not part.

Olivier: There is a mistake, I will tell Sophie.

Nora: Yes but we should have a separate Skype on this, because you are definitely contributing to the project and we would like work out something more concrete on the participation of Cairo, also financially.

(Olivier, Nora and Andrea will have a Skype meeting on that.)

Andrea: Who can travel to Vienna in terms of finances?

Nora: Me and Carla are working on the budget. One person per working group will be able to attend, perhaps more. This will be working groups that are already in the application, adding groups who joined as associates in São Paulo: London, Cairo and Berlin.