ART AS ACTIVISM (AND ITS LIMITS) IN THE POST-COLONY
Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts, 16-17 April 2008

The Harvard University Committee on African Studies announces a two-day
event to be held on Wednesday, April 16 and Thursday April 17, 2008,
co-sponsored with the Du Bois Center, and Harvard University Art
Museums. The event is free and open to the public. Graduate students
and recent PhDs, as well as senior scholars, are encouraged to attend.
Travel and accommodation expenses will be the responsibility of
attendees.

In the wake of Africa's anti-colonial struggles and decolonization, the
politically engaged artist has come to occupy a more complex and
unstable terrain. Charged with exciting possibility as much as with
challenge, the postcolonial era brings in its wake new subjectivities
and new demands on art.

The event "Art as Activism (and its limits) in the Post-Colony"
pushes the conversation in challenging new directions with two key
events, a roundtable discussion on Wednesday April 16 (6:30-10pm),
and an artist's talk on Thursday April 17 (6:30pm).
Wednesday's program brings together three leading edge activist cultural
workers from Africa, and three U.S. scholars whose work examines
intersections between art and activism. Hailing from fields as diverse
as contemporary theory, Africanist studies, and art practice,
participants will briefly present their own work and join in what
promises to be a fiery and provocative roundtable discussion, moderated
by Professor Biodun Jeyifo.

The roundtable emphasizes contexts in Africa and the African Diaspora,
but will also will consider these themes in other times and places.
Thursday's program features internationally acclaimed artist, Sokari
Douglas Camp. She will present her reflections on themes related to
those suggested here, and on her recent work, powerful steel-wrought
indictments of transnational oil companies in the Niger Delta, which
have been responsible for systematic patterns of violence and
environmental damage in the region.

For full program details see: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~afrart/

Speakers:

April 16, 2008, 6:30PM - 10:00PM
Round Table Discussion
Biodun Jeyifo, Moderator

Part 1: 6:30 - 8:00 PM
N'tone Edjabe
Chaz Maviyane-Davies
Thierry N’Landu

Part 2: 8:40 - 10:00 PM
Duana Fullwiley
Doris Sommer
Carrie Lambert-Beatty

April 17, 2008, 6:30PM
Sokari Douglas Camp, "'Let Me Land': Listen Up"

Belfer Case Study Room, CGIS South Building, Harvard University
1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge MA 02138