Reaching Sideways, Writing Our Ways

Ruth Simbao: In Rehema Chachage's video installation, Kwa Baba Rithi Undugu (2010), sculptural objects representing old-fashioned transistor radios are mounted on the wall, side by side (Fig. 1). Embedded in each radio is a small video screen, which reveals a figure who stands in one place while the vertical line of the radio tuner crosses her body in search of the desired frequency (Figs. 2–3). A man's voice wafts in and out as it is periodically interrupted by unsolicited noise, revealing the difficulty of relating to others when sound is interrupted or there is an absence of voice. Voice, writes Chachage, is a “prerequisite for interlocution and the construction of discourse.”2 This work engages with the assertion that to “live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree ...” and to do so full heartedly with your “eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit ... whole body and deeds” (Bakhtin 1984:293).3Rehema Chachage, a Dar es Salaam-based artist who works with video, installation, and performance, explains that her work is predominantly determined by her situatedness. Her early work draws from her time spent as a student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and she describes experiencing this situation as a “‘cultural foreigner’ and a non-South African, black female student in a predominantly white middle class ... institution.” At this time, she says, her work was produced from “the point of view of a stranger, the outsider, the other, alien and often voiceless.”4Chachage's concern with dialogue and voice in Kwa Baba Rithi Undungu serves as an effective inroad into a multivocal conversation in the context of a scholarly journal, for “Without dialogue there is no communication, and without communication there can be no true education” (Freire 2005:92–93). Dialogue, writes Paolo Freire (2005:88–91), is about horizontal relationships; it is an existential necessity and an act of creation rather than an instrument of domination of one person over another. When one listens to a radio, voices can be tuned out selectively. Opinions exist as waves out there, but statements can be blocked with the turn of a dial. At times there is a crackle—a disruption of signal or an interference caused by the receiver. If one were to hold an old transmitter radio, one could attempt to receive better sound if one moved around, changing one's orientation.This multivocal dialogue reaches sideways as it opens up the dominant international discourse5 of the arts of Africa to include a higher percentage of voices from the African continent. (Participating writers are based in Zambia, Nigeria, Benin, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, the US, Egypt, Tanzania, and Angola/Portugal.) This sideways reach registers the importance of intracontinental conversations in Africa that are sometimes missing from internationally visible scholarship on the arts of Africa, and it asks how scholars in the global South and the global North6 can benefit from a reconsideration of what the predominant orientation of our scholarly discourse is.A common understanding of the word “orientation” is one's position relative to, for example, the points of the compass, and its meaning in the nineteenth century was the “arrangement of a building etc. to face east or another specific direction.”7 The etymology of “orientation” links the word historically to the notion of facing East (hence the label of “the Orient” for “places in the East”), implying a particular position from which one views the world and thereby develops a certain standpoint. This dialogue attempts to encourage an understanding of orientation that situates speaking positions and gives credence to the physical positioning of knowing subjects, whilst also expanding beyond physical coordinates, seeking richer understandings of the orientation of our research.What is the orientation of the international discourse of the arts of Africa in the twenty-first century and what position do we see this discourse in relation to? In what ways might it matter that the vast majority of authors in journals such as African Arts and NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art are based in the North? (See “Situating Africa: A Geopolitics of Knowledge, or Chapungu Rises” in this issue). In his thought-piece “What Is an African Curriculum?” Harry Garuba (2015) discusses the activism of James Ngũgĩ (now Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o), Henry Owuor-Anyumba, and Taban Lo Liyong at the University of Nairobi who fought for the decolonization of the curriculum in the 1960s. Garuba (2015) argues that it was “place, perspective, and orientation” that needed to be addressed in order to position “Kenya, East Africa, and Africa” at the center of knowledge-production in newly independent Kenya. In this current moment of revived activism in Africa regarding the “politics of knowing” (Ngũgĩ 2012), what can we learn about historical calls for reorientation? Are there ways that we can hear contributions of other scholars more effectively if we adjust our orientation? Can we reduce the crackle that sometimes surfaces in the discourse if we shift our respective positions?This dialogue places an emphasis on the voices of scholars, artists, and curators based on the African continent, as it marks the start of an Africa-based editorial consortium partnership with African Arts.8 The dialogue is neither definitive, nor complete. Instead, it is a departure point that invites further conversation from people who, together, desire to learn more than we now know about our field of research and our respective roles in generating new knowledge. What is our view on the strength of the current scholarship on the visual and performing arts, and from what standpoint have we developed this view? How can we discuss various orientations and in doing so work towards generating scholarly knowledge and artistic practice that is more rigorous and diverse, and is relevant to different locally embedded and interconnected contexts?William B. Miko: Africa is like an absent landlord in most dialogues and discourses relating to her own arts. This African Arts discussion aims to turn a new page on scholarship and knowledge-generation, which has largely been produced and propagated by and with an “outsider's” point of view. Usually, when an opportunity for an African scholar arises to study the arts of the continent, the curriculum that is used remains foreign, thereby shrouding scholarship and keeping the knowledge of Africans in obscurity. How can an African scholar living and working on the continent today still ascribe to and perpetuate this status quo? (By “African” I mean every scholar living on the African continent or in the African diaspora, without engaging in dichotomies of skin color, creed, or ethnicity). The question is: Who needs to shift the production of knowledge about Africa and what are the engines and spaces of production of this knowledge? As I discuss further below, it is critical for Africans to be at the forefront of this shift.Eyitayo Tolulope Ijisakin: While one cannot but give credence to some Africanists and non-African writers who have played a role in laying the foundation for scholarship in the visual and performing arts of Africa as an internationally recognized field of research, it is critical to acknowledge that the West still largely dictates the rhythm of art scholarship in postcolonial Africa. Many critics and art historians (including some African scholars residing in the West) continue to apply predominantly Western considerations to the analysis of “contemporary African art.” Furthermore, a number of African artists who are celebrated in the West are not particularly popular or well-known in their own countries in Africa. Their works are seen as visual representations of African thought, but in some ways this gives an inaccurate impression of African intelligence and artistic dexterity.In rethinking the ways in which Africa is positioned in relation to the arts and beyond, I strongly suggest the use of the philosophies of African people in the critical discourse and analysis of their arts. African subject matter and cultural symbols that are deeply meaningful to an expression of African identity should be engaged with more often, and in my view it is only the person who is deeply immersed in a particular culture that is well-placed to advance the purpose of that research.At this point, we have not seen the emergence of sufficient momentum and quality of scholarship that could meaningfully challenge and positively shift this Western dominance. This is partly due to the challenges scholars on the continent face in terms of publishing, such as inadequate financial support and limited publishing outlets. Locally produced publications that meet international standards and benefit from the visibility of wide geographic distribution are rare. That said, scholarship and artistic practice that is rigorous, diverse, and meaningful, I think, can be generated by African scholars.Romuald Tchibozo (translated by Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi): I don't think that much has fundamentally changed in recent years regarding Africa's positioning in the world. Our fellow researchers in Africa haven't progressed sufficiently, and researchers based in the South continue to be viewed as appendices to research programs developed elsewhere. Research projects are often formulated without consultation, and without cooperative agreements regarding the mutual interests of both parties. The result is that other people write and think on our behalf. In my opinion, there is only one thing to do: we need to create research funds on the continent and facilitate work exchanges between Southern-based researchers in order to formulate new concepts. This has the potential to meaningfully change the gaze of other scholars and to shift the global positioning of African researchers and artists.We need to develop a better overview of the various platforms that grant scholarships in Africa, and it is important to share knowledge about funding that is specifically for writers and practitioners who are based on the African continent. This would play a significant role in challenging the perception that one needs to be located outside of Africa in order to be recognized. Scholarship-holders and other scholars could develop broad research themes every three years, and by identifying active researchers we could collaborate more and move beyond hierarchical differentiations between African researchers who are from different African contexts and who speak different languages. We could also develop a professional association of international standing in Africa that is able to defend theoretical and conceptual choices regarding the study of the arts in Africa.William B. Miko: Returning to my earlier point about Africans being at the forefront of shifts in knowledge production, I provide a relevant example from my own context in Zambia. Zambia gained independence over fifty years ago, but until 2010 there was not a single university that offered a Fine Arts degree. The Zambian Open University (ZAOU), which was founded in 2005, created the first university-level arts degree at the School of Media, Performing, and Fine Arts. With tenacity in the face of much doubt, I played a key role in establishing this Open Distance Learning (ODL) art school. Many argued that art cannot be taught in an ODL system, but in my view this perpetuates established colonial notions of education designed to prevent the “other” from excelling.Colonization has its own fair share of mental constrictions in the formerly colonized person's mind. What is from the West is often perceived as good even if it was initially taken from Africa, repackaged in the West, and brought back to the continent. Unfortunately some contemporary artists hold this viewpoint and think that it is more prestigious to study abroad, and they have little knowledge of their own national art history.Students at the ZAOU art school learn through a combination of contact periods and distance learning, and we bring together formal university education and engagement with the non-formal sector and practicing artists. During contact periods we visit local art collections and art platforms, such as Chaminuka Lodge, the Lusaka National Museum, Namwandwe Gallery, Lechwe Trust, Henry Tayali Centre, and Twaya Art Gallery. We also visit many artists’ studios and community-based art initiatives. The academic progression observed in students has been amazing—one has to see this modus operandi in motion to believe in its success in a developing nation with limited resources. My philosophy is, “It can only be done for you if you do it yourself; the rest will join in on the way.”The first cohort of students graduated in September 2014, and to mark this momentous event I produced a public performance with my students at the graduation ceremony in Lusaka. I purchased a new white Pier Luigi suit, and during the ceremony the graduating students transformed the suit into a “human canvas” with paints and brushes hidden in their graduation gowns (Fig. 4). Dancing to traditional music performed by the theater and drama students, they signed their names on the suit, registering their role in creating a new space in the production of academic knowledge in the arts. Some of these undergraduates are currently pursuing their Master's degrees, and together we are asserting ourselves by generating scholarship, knowledge, and artistic practice that is rigorous and relevant—first to ourselves in Zambia and secondly to the rest of the world.Ruth Simbao: At this critical time of ongoing and revived calls on the African continent for decoloniality, it is evident that not enough has changed in terms of the way the world imagines, views, frames, and consumes Africa, subsuming the complexitites of its numerous contexts. How can we continue to rethink the ways in which Africa is positioned in relation to the broader artworld? To what degree do external forces continue to shape artworks, artists, and theories, and what alternative forces already exist? Whose agency is exerted and recognized? As Masimba Hwati asks: Who pushes the wheelbarrow?Masimba Hwati: The way that Africa and its contexts continue to be imagined and seen by other groups of people is problematic, because commercial motives tend to lie at the heart of political and cultural engineering of representations of Africa. Due to ongoing perceptions of Africa as a dangerous and poor place, artists from Africa are burdened with the political pressure to appease the ill-informed appetites of collectors and curators. Being an African artist or an artist from an African context is often a negotiation of history itself and a constant navigation of the various images associated with the word “Africa.” In my engagement with different Occidental cultural platforms, I find that sometimes people view my artwork through distorted lenses. At times this challenge can transform into positive processes of dialogue that can become an extension of the work.Unfortunately, there remains a persistent preconceptualization of art from Africa as “tribal,” “ritualistic,” and “functional.” This does not mean that Occidental authors have not played a positive role in negotiating the image of Africa as a cultural space. There are quite a number of credible critical reviews on art from Africa by various writers who are not from Africa and who succeed in countering erroneous images. However, the onus also rests on writers on the African continent to challenge certain bodies of knowledge created about Africa, and it is critical that this is not just done in a reactive way, but in proactive ways such as creating more critical platforms that are not insular in nature but are inclusive of multiple audiences.This raises important questions around the definitions and parameters of curatorship as an institution and its potential to reform or to perpetuate the problematic images of the African continent, which has become a cultural albatross. This question becomes critical as we explore the sources of funding that are available for some of the major curatorial projects on the continent. Most funding from former colonial masters’ countries creates a fundamentally problematic situation for the arts on the continent in terms of agency and dependency, hence the need for more African-funded curatorial projects on the continent. Many foreign policies treat the African continent as an entity that moves only by external pressure.In my artwork I use the wheelbarrow to symbolize a lack of agency, as it is an inert apparatus that requires external force to move it. The wheelbarrow appears in the form of a wheelbarrow-table in the installation Don't Worry, Be Happy exhibited in “Consuming Us” at the 2016 Cape Town Art Fair [see p. 7, Fig. 10 in this issue]. It also appears in the installation “Rinamanyanga Hariputirwe” exhibited at SMAC Gallery (Fig. 5). The title of this recent work refers to a Karanga proverb that can be loosely translated as which has cannot be to the that the will out or that nature will out and provide a the of form and such as the wheelbarrow-table or the I explore the of and The is an designed to be or an of and an of and the wheelbarrow is a of a example of the work I explore the whilst a broader to the African The work of 2016 when experiencing an We a of people definitions and a formerly used to In my work these are various objects around the as if to defend the and the to a up in a of Simbao: I currently with the of sideways and sideways to develop in my own work as a scholar and a and intracontinental scholarly engagement that does not to the theories, and of and and at of in and other contexts that horizontal In what ways are the of sideways or sideways in the visual and performing arts, and how might they be further in our various contexts of scholarship, education and art How could a sideways reach change the orientation of the dominant discourse of the arts of Africa that in many ways to an My work is in the global South and engages with It is, in in that it my own as a My identity is as different and both challenge and shape the of working in this I produced an installation (Fig. which draws from a in which a in with a to the and the with the of that are installation to on of time and and as as and It also to is with but is also subject to to or in the of about and the use of performance and the installation African, and Western cultural in a and that is both and I to a for the traditional instrument the and the African from different in a way that a of sound that shifts between the and of both and (translated by Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi): In my context in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this of knowledge is evident in artists’ in a much more relevant way than in formal arts In I have this in the of the in the and early in on our various over time, it evident that our challenges when we locally on and when we to have a or international In the we much about what was and we in a that and the practice of (Figs. is of the of This should not our to our in our own of the international art we need to voices that what we have to and we can to the used in the This is a because even when are broader and more the and tend to and the are visible and to as this we the we has that are in relation to the of sideways and the Africa of Arts is a of artistic from Africa, and The Arts which of this our and develops a for and based on an alternative artistic education that on of The Africa of is a research that up relevant in our own African with in the of art that were from has different for different In Uganda, our education to to the of colonial education and as such remains a largely Western If a student an institution that has a or and a or she or is to be what about a of education that is and This could for example, as as and the in a facing each other or the use of to a of and active rather than and of sideways are not common in education in a of the in Uganda, I to bring to scholarship and scholarship to is a of practice in that artistic processes with activism to to the that our which still a colonial The was founded by a of artists artists, and arts who have a desire for a of and that in a small at University in the developed the the of as a (Fig. a a of and a various art to find and particular The are in the and in the form of drama and of the which is a community-based in in Uganda, are based in and as as in up of of education the the one which links to sideways as knowledge and from one another. have no and and are to and need at particular to our is notion of from the that knowledge. In understanding of the role to be that of the and the of knowledge, and the in the of and knowledge. As can be used to own and knowledge, creating inclusive I was as an art and also as a West African for years, and a I use as art historical I like this if sideways is about challenging we art historians might out of our of critical our can sometimes the artists, artworks, and contexts that we include in the discourses that we of my recent The West African and with the of West African place in 2016 in the at University of I taught for a number of and in many of my I to collaborate with my students by into now Art in and In this and key scholarly with my students, I moved out from the and into the with to share from in and The students were in turn to their own contemporary I played the for The West African performance, I of the and being in the bodies of the student who were still their from the recent In the first image of this (Fig. the the back of a black who moves his up into the don't through his body a of our In that the student is be for his in of their in the spirit of black as In the image (Fig. are by the of that I taught the students of various and who together in in and are of our are The of up don't become the of and these turn into of (Fig. Simbao: In recent years, important and of and and have ongoing and In what ways or should such shape our production of scholarly and artistic knowledge? How do these and as as the of that shape our and How might we to with as scholars and artists in Africa and the African as being and limited to our respective local contexts and as artists and writers in a In 2016 I to the during a of as students in South Africa to and my work I to what I in and on and what I about the over the radio and It that the were being as the in the and by in at academic and in they were to as who were in of to be of who were other of this to University in every for

Art · Visual arts · Decolonial Thought and Epistemologies · Latin American and Latino Studies · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

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