We would like to invite you to take part in another instalment of Decolonial Futures, an extracurricular workshop programme around questions of decolonisation in the context of art and education.

This year you can apply for two different projects: in one project you will work with questions around the history and the future of the collections of ethnographic museums in Europe and in the other you will engage with alternative approaches to storytelling and collective film making. Each programme is open to 15 students from the Rietveld Academie and the Sandberg Instituut. The programme is organised in collaboration with artists from Funda Community College in Soweto, South Africa. Outcomes of the projects will be publicly presented.

If you’re interested to participate please send a short motivation to decolonialfutures@gmail.com by Friday 4 October (300 words max). For more information about the programme see below. If you have any questions feel free to send us an email.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Simangaliso Sibiya and Dorine van Meel
https://sandberg.nl/decolonial-futures

Project 1: Art, Decolonial Relocation, Colonial Dislocation

Friday 1 November, 29 November, 10 January, 7 February and 6 March from 10.00-13.00
Led by Gloria Holwerda-Williams

“…We pilfer from the Africans under the pretext of teaching others how to love them and get to know their culture, that is, when all is said and done, to train even more ethnographers, so they can head off to encounter them and ‘love and pilfer’ from them as well.” - Michel Leiris, Letter to his wife (1931)

That some museums, worldwide are, finally, addressing calls for their collections ’ill-gotten” objects ‘acquired’ during colonial periods, to be ‘repatriated’ to their lands of origin, and efforts to remove public monuments which have long stood in celebration of enslavers/racists/torturers, reminds us of the unfortunate role the arts institutions have played in colonisation and signals the vital role arts institutions have in decolonisation.

Participants in this workshop explore the dual work of current efforts underway to return stolen objects to their lands of origin.The perspectives of both the museum’s role as the ‘displayer/holder’ of the ‘ill gotten’ object(s), and in repatriation process, and ‘return’ as our partner participants at Funda Community College, South Africa will be examining African request/demand for return of stolen objects, and the cultural history of these objects.

Focusing on efforts as well to decolonize museums and art situated in public areas, we will examine some of Amsterdam’s historic public monuments, architectural embellishments, and “decolonial art” efforts by individuals and groups. Participants will also engage in creating art works which address ’decolonisation’ of art in public spaces. Works created by participants will be displayed in a public area and online, during and at end of the programme. Participants work both individually and collaboratively, participate in presentations, and engage with visiting guests.

Gloria Holwerda-Williams is a multidiscipline artist/poet/performer/educator/activist born in Brooklyn, NY, USA. Formerly, professor for art in the usa at SUNY Purchase College, and The Cooper Union School for the Advancement of Science and Art, and Education Developer/Coordinator at The Drawing Center and art education developer for other art organizations in NYC.

Project 2: Performing Communal Memories, Re-imagining Communal Futures
Friday 11 October (whole day), 1 November, 29 November, 10 January, 7 February and 6 March from 14.00-17.00

Led by Astrid Korporaal

“Tolerance is but the ‘civilized’ form of intolerance. Hospitality is something radically different. It includes a principle of levelling (…) by which the foreigner, the stranger, the ‘Other,’ is given a place within the ‘we’ hosting him/her.” - Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash

How can shared stories create new options for living together in the future? How can artists engage with sustainability and hospitality as forms of decolonial creativity?

As part of the extracurricular exchange programme Decolonial Futures, these six workshops will be exercises in reflection and collaborative discussion, with the aim of collectively producing video works.

Questioning the (Western) associations of experimentation with originality, individuality and independence, we will explore how alternative approaches to storytelling and image making can be used to interrupt dominant histories and representation, to rethink who or what is given a voice and how we listen. We will discuss the possibilities and pitfalls of contemporary social practice, from documentary and forensic aesthetics to institutional critique, and from speculative fiction to media activism. Most importantly, we will reflect on our own entangled positions in relation to eco-political urgencies, and how we can respond in ways that multiply, rather than erase, modes of being in the world.

The workshops are open to filmmakers and artists who are interested in exploring experimental dialogues across cultural and geographical contexts. We can make use of connections in Soweto, Surinam and London, as well as the networks of guest speakers and the platform of the Frames of Representation film festival that will take place at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London.

Astrid Korporaal is PhD researcher in Art and Art History at Kingston University and Research Curator for the Frames of Representation film festival. She previously worked as Curator of Education Partnerships at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London and as founding Director of Almanac Projects in London and Turin.