Andrea Thal (AT). The roles and responsibilities of the final project were left poorly defined yesterday, and require further discussion.
Nora Landkammer (NL). We need to identify the contact person for each of the IH subgroups, also what the next steps are.
Christian Nyampeta (CN) is the contact person for the exhibition kit group Olivier Desvoignes (OD) and Marianne Guarino-Huet (MG) are the contact persons for the timeline, they will take responsibility for collecting the material AT is the contact person for the learning units group
Carmen Moersch (CM). Each of us needs to make responsibility for the project as a whole, i.e. answering to emails and questions when they are put to you in a timely fashion. Lineo Segoete (LS) told CM that getting responses to enquiries in the preparation phase for this meeting was very frustrating, it was only when NL “doubled up” that anyone bothered to respond. In this project, there is “the magic of the encounter” during which we do a lot of work, make a lot of plans, and then after we part, we struggle to follow through. We tend to be over-laden with work.
AT. There is an open question about where we meet in 2018. NL. There was a proposal not yet discussed about not meeting in Johannesburg as a result of another possible coincidence of a History Cluster meeting and an Africa Cluster (AC) meeting. It would save on travel costs and stuff. AT. It is not yet 100% decided that the next meeting of AC is in Johannesburg. If it is, then it would make for 2 consecutive meetings in Johannesburg. (AC will meet in April 2017, for very stupid funding reasons we probably have to meet in Johannesburg. This is something we should decide very soon, and we need to think about what it means if it happens in Johannesburg twice in less than a year. Patrick Mudekereza (PM). If may be more relevant for Johannesburg to have the biggest meeting in 2018, and then we (Africa Cluster) look at having a meeting elsewhere in southern Africa in April 2017.
OD. Sophie Paglai (SP) (The Intertwining Histories project administrator based in Geneva) will be contacting us about payment for the next phase of the research in the next week. Geneva will continue to pay people in advance.
NL. Contracting and invoice will be done by SP (Geneva WG). I will be contact person for the web platform together with my colleague Maja Renn (MR).
CM. Please introduce the project co-ordinators.
OD. Sophie Paglai studied in at HEAD in Geneva, did many projects about the Roma in Switzerland, and is part of a group/cluster formed by teachers and assistants and students from University of Geneva who are interested in thinking about decolonising Switzerland, gender, race, intersectionality, etc. We decided to work with her because of the thematic connections. It was not an option for us just to take someone just for administrative tasks, we wanted someone who was theoretically involved. She will be producing the newsletter together with all of you (and will also contribute), but will take charge of lots of administrative tasks, everything related to salaries, honoraria and travel arrangements (partly) of the next events.
NL. The histories cluster funding “flows together’ in Geneva. I continue to work on the general level of the AR School as a whole in co-ordinator with help from Maja Renn who is quite young and has studied a the ZHdK in the teacher training but also previously studied curating with arts practice and runs an artist’s space with residencies in Porto, Portugal. She is incredible at connecting things online, for example runs the space in Porto while mostly being abroad and is very interested in collaboration in different places and is interested in how such a collaboration could have a politics of its own. The web platform as not just structural but directly related with the content. She will be in touch with you directly about the web platform.
AT. This is the last hour we have basically. We should use it to collect the comments and remaining questions from the last 3 days. So I would like to open the microphone and start collecting.
Nana Adusei-Poku (NA). On behalf of the “advisory board” (I am not comfortable with that name). My impression is much much better than it was before, I have a much better understanding of the project in general. I have really enjoyed the format of sharing the projects, having the input and then the conversations over the past days, and this is a format that should remain. However there should be a few more breaks. I am thrilled to see how the project will further develop. I sincerely hope that some of the issues raised around the philosophical backdrop of the entire project – history, people, locations, not to forget the basis upon which we care operating – continue to be considered carefully. Double check – what am I reproducing here? Who am I allowing to speak? Who is silent? – in order not to reproduce paradigms that this project is trying to tackle and make visible and also underline. Also an urge in terms of practices: one of the things that I missed was a discussion of assumptions about subject positions in the room. A practice of naming one’s preferred gender pronoun, naming things that are sharply shared in the room. We talk about queering issues but what does that mean practically in the room? One thing I wonder about it is what kind of disciplinary backgrounds we have and not do to this “name dropping” (I am guilty of this). Because we are coming from different schools, what are we actually talking about? To what extent to we share a terminology? Not everyone may be intrinsically familiar with Stuart Hall. This is something we reproduce is our speech acts that needs to be addressed.
Claudia Hummel (CH). I have a question. Is the number of learning units reduced to the number of case studies? NL. No. We do as many has we have the energy and time to do. CH. So if i can find make one about [could not hear this]
CM. It’s such a miracle, we are such a heterogeneous group and openness and maybe compensates for the frictions in the different epistemological positions and backgrounds. And there is very little mobilisation of jargon in comparison to other contexts, and a readiness to explain ourselves to one another. Positively surprised at how productive these encounters are. What I will take out of this, rather than thinking about conditions, I would not accept such an invitation like this one again. I don’t like the hard chairs, the 3 days, and then the 2 days of reciprocity. We would have been much more productive if we could have had a rest day and then could have read together on a less tight schedule. Next time, we need to think about the material conditions – sound, seating, etc.. SP Biennial team have made a big effort to work with us within the structure of the biennial, it’s structurally important for us to be here – kudos, visibility – but what does it lead to? This is the question I take away from this experience. I congratulate us form being energetic and strong to cope with these conditions.
OD. I am glad for everything we did in these 3 days. Even though there are some frictions, it’s not that bad given the challenge that we have. Regarding the structure of what we discussed. It think it’s very nice that we split some tasks between the timeline, the exhibition kit and the landing units, but it’s very important that these 3 elements are fed by everybody and not just by the people who are announced to be more involved in that. For the challenge is to find strategies so that everyone can be involved in that. So that we can all contribute to those things.
PM. We are individuals but I know that within the Lubumbashi WG there are people more interested in the learning units. We need to open these tasks to the people back home who are not attending, put them in touch with the others so that they can take part.
AT. I am very happy that Hussein and I were able to come. It feels like an achievement. I am actually becoming aware that we have made a transformation in these 3 days. We have not been officially members of this cluster until now, now we wanted to announce that we are. We were kind of homeless without cluster, ours kind of disappeared. The economy cluster disappeared. So this is really what I feel happy about and it was important to be here, I was not in Madrid, I feel very much inside it once more and I want to keep that feeling.
Lerato Molisana (LM). This has been very informative, I am her on behalf of LS. Being here I get the relevance of the research and the potential that it has. It has brought the content to life for me.
Luiza Proença (LP). It was very interesting to be with you on these days. I am very interested in the group dynamics, and am very proud of what this group has been doing. I remember that I could not come to the meeting in Madrid because I had to attend a meeting with museum curators, and I saw pictures of the Madrid meeting and it looked much more interesting than what we were doing in Brazil at the time. I understand that you needed this time in a closed situation too discuss the projects of the cluster, it would have been better if we had more time to prepare a dialogue with the context.
Carla Bobadilla (CB). Thanks to Sofia and the SP Biennial team and AR people who organised this encounter here. It was so interesting to hear all those histories and gave us energy to stay and to keep working. Thank you.
Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa (EW). It has been great to see everyone again and to spend time. I just hope that we can do a good job of dividing the labour equitably so that running the project does not become a responsibility that rests solely on one or two pairs of shoulders.
George Shire (GS). Thank you.
Catrin Seefranz (CS). I would like to thank the project for having invited me as a guest. It means a lot for many reasons. I took part in AR in the very beginning, then I had to stop but now 2 years later to see how the project has grown and changed is really amazing and touching also. I really have the impression that AR is in many senses and on many levels really departing from the south or trying to do so. This is something rare and exceptional. It’s great to see that it has got this direction. I didn’t say so much, this has to do that I am not used to this discursive spaces any more. But I am happy to contribute with my research and findings related to popular education in Brazil, in relation to the museum in the 1960s. I could also offer help on an organisational level to realise the festival in Vienna (where I am based). Thank you. I learned a lot.
MG. There are a lot of nice people here an many inserting things that are going on. I’m just not ready to unpack this.
Rangoato Hlasane (RH). It has been yet another enriching space, I’m very happy to have met new people, we are still going to be together, and maybe some people don’t know that there is a planned movement to move our bodies. People who think together dance together. So let’s go. Maybe some things will be resolved on the dance floor. We are still trying to find a venue and a sound system. We will see. If we come to you and ask for a contribution to the cost of the sound system, please be generous.
David Andrew (DA). Thank you to an extraordinary group of people. I have learned a lot over the past few days. That is down to the rich generosity that is in this group. One of the interesting things about this project is how it is starting to infiltrate the work at the Wits School of Art and beyond Wits. It’s becoming completely enmeshed in what Ra is doing what I am doing, what Puleng is doing. When research starts to work in that way, it’s very significant, it is important with the broader group and with with Africa cluster particularly. There are many further extraordinary things that will take place. Thank you to Nora and Carmen for the organisation that ha taken place.
Puleng Plessie (PP). Keleketla has a project called Inkazata (???) a concept where people bring stuff together, they bring something in order to prepare something to eat – something big together. I know I’m just a typical language and translator person but it’s how I connect to certain things. We all brought so much and ate so much. I feel completely full. I really appreciate being here, what I have learned, from exchanging, sometimes you feel like you are on an island. thank you to all, and especially to the Johannesburg WG for being so great.
Yuk Lin Cheng (YC). My feeling is quite complex. I am very impressed by everybody here, they are very committed and serious about what they are doing. And that is what I want to share with my friends when I go back to Hong Kong. I feel a bit guilty because life in HK is very hectic and I am very burned out, and am considering retiring. Before I came I did not sleep well for a few days, and I wondered if I could manage with just a few hours of sleep. Actually I would like to have more commitment, but I have to consider my own condition, because I have serious time constraints. If I work further with the university it will be very tough for me. I am now thinking about strategies and solutions that will enable me to continue.
Kitto Derrick Wintergreen (KD). I sent a mail to Nora informing that I had got a visa. She replied with “Yeah!”. You can know good people and it touched me so much that someone was very happy that I am attending. I have worked with good people – Emma, George, Carmen – and communicating with them via the internet/social media, I am very happy to be here. I see good people, people with information, I have learned a lot from this, and I expect to continue learning and to take some of the information back to NIAAD, especially the way of working together around the table, My task was to come, observe and make an assessment, I am still observing and assessing.
CN. Thank you everyone – different everyones who have made this possible over the time and years. I am grateful that such a space can produce such a wealth of directions of hopes of futures (despite its limitations). Keeping in mind the people with whom I am speaking or speaking for, I will quote Issayi Nzemana says on the subject of education – he is rector of a school in Butare – he finds education is not only to inform the mind but also to attend to the heart because “Not all rationalities are good for humankind and for society and therefore the heart just go up to see the thoughts that the mind is conceiving. But the mind must also visit the heart, because not all feelings are good.” There maybe a separation between heart and the mind, but they are in the same body. We must pay attention to what is going on in our daily lives, and try to focus on the actual message and filter out the noise. This is what I will take back to Nyanza, and also use this to think about what I will do differently.
CH. It was a pleasure to get to know you and the contents you are dealing with. I am carrying away a lot of new thoughts, and I would love to contribute if there is a possibility of something to do.
Janna Graham (JG). I want to echo a lot of what I have heard. I came into this having been away from AR for several years, an I was 20 minutes into the discussion was completely blown away by how much has happen in this time and how rich this space is. This thing about the heart and the mind I felt it so many times in these past days, and felt very refuelled by the seriousness, commitment focus, but also the generosity and the care that people take for one another It’s fare and I don’t experience it very often. The people in my group are only just getting together would have loved to be here, and I do hope that I can transmit to them the richness of this experience. We all contributed in terms of an intellectual knowledge, but we also reproduced this in terms of coffee, cleaning, etc. I wanted to say thank you for caring. Practically today I loved it when we changed formats, not just sitting around the table all the time, so it’s something that we need to think about going forward. We could dance a bit in the middle of our discussion too.
NL. I don’t have much to add. My whole feeling of the meting was very strongly linked between total excitement – when I look at this wall I imagine this as a 10-year full-time research project for each of it – I love it and want to work on all of that but this is also linked with a sense of desperation: how are we going to deal with this? This is also part of my emotion of being here, learning and thinking at high speed in an intense way and I am very grateful for that.
