When We See Us webinar series

For more than a century, Black artists, whether residing in Africa or within the vast African diaspora, have invested and pursued a spectrum of visual vocabularies that encompass the experience of Blackness—of being Black, of living within Black cultures and navigating the complexities of representation and visibility. In doing so, Black artists have intentionally, continuously and effectively rejected oppressive tropes of representation that have been cast on African and Afro-diasporic lives by the Euro-American enterprise of dehumanisation and segregation. 

Conceived by Zeitz MOCAA in collaboration with the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at the University of Cape Town, the When We See Us webinar series is a 14-part online discursive programme that precedes a major eponymous exhibition, slated to open at Zeitz MOCAA in November. The exhibition and webinar series aim to unveil the deeper historic contexts and networks of complex and underrepresented artistic genealogies that stem from African and Black modernities. 

The title of the exhibition and webinar series is inspired by a 2019 American drama series, When They See Us, directed by Ava DuVernay. For the exhibition, flipping ‘they’ to ‘we’ allows for a dialectical shift that centres the conversation in a differential perspective of self-writing as theorised by Cameroonian writer, historian and political scientist Achille Mbembe. 

Figurative painting by Black African and African-descent artists has risen to new prominence in the contemporary art field over the last decade. This series aims to connect artistic practices from the early 20th century to the present day, bringing together thought leaders from the continent and its thriving diaspora to address topics around global Black subjectivity and Black representation through the lens of artistic production. The programme and exhibition are curated by Executive Director and Chief Curator Koyo Kouoh and Assistant Curators Tandazani Dhlakama and Thato Mogotsi.

Schedule
March 29: The Poetics of Black Figuration
April 12: Defining the ‘We’ & the ‘Us’
May 10: African Modernists: Pioneers of Art Pedagogies & Modalities
May 31: A Century of Black Figuration as Representation of Self
June 14: Complicating Black Renaissance: A Continuum of Black Art Histories
July 12: Black is Beautiful: Pan-Africanism & Afropolitan impulse in Contemporary Art
July 26: Creolization and Syncretism: To Whom do ‘We’ Belong?
August 16: ‘Nobody was dreaming about me’: A Black Queering of the Canon (… after A. Lorde)
September 6: ‘No Black Woman Can Write Too Much’  (… after b. hooks)
September 27: A Global Hierarchy of Blackness: Complexities, Contradictions & Contestations
October 18: Refusing the Gaze: Seeing & Authoring Ourselves
November 8: Witness, Sitter or Storyteller: A Politic of Portraiture
November 29: Fabulation: Navigating the tension between Image & Imaginaries
December 6: Homecoming: Patronage as Placemaking for Black & African diasporic Narratives

Free via Zoom on selected Tuesdays.

Zeitz MOCAA’s curatorial and exhibition programming is proudly supported by GUCCI.

About Zeitz MOCAA
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) is a public not-for-profit institution that collects, preserves, researches and exhibits contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora; conceives and hosts international exhibitions; develops supporting educational, discursive and enrichment programmes; encourages intercultural understanding; and strives towards access for all. The galleries feature rotating temporary exhibitions with a dedicated space for the permanent collection. The institution also includes the Centre for Art Education, the Centre for the Moving Image and The Atelier, a museum residency project space for artists in Cape Town. 

About the Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town
HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa, is located at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town (UCT). HUMA has an Afropolitan outlook with a Pan-African approach. HUMA is a hub of innovative research that opens up new areas of interdisciplinary inquiry and establishes strong connections between scholars in the institute, within the university, South Africa and with comparable institutes across the world.