Minutes of the 8th meeting
Present: Paul-Henri Souvenir Assako Assako, Cameroon; Patrique deGraft-Yankson, Ghana; Osuanyi Essel, Ghana; Bea Lundt, Germany; Avi Sooful, South Africa; Bernadette Van Haute, South Africa; Ernst Wagner, Germany; Susanne Hesse and Katharina Hilgert (documenta), Germany
Welcome to all participants by Avi Sooful, chair of the panel. Avi Sooful congratulates Paul, Patrique, and Mary Claire on their exciting presentations at the Nuremberg conference. Ernst invites the presenters to publish the contributions on the EVC website. Avi explains why the meeting had to be postponed.
Apologies from Mary Claire Akinyi Kidenda, Kenya, who cannot attend due to university obligations.
The agenda is accepted.
- Status of the book “Visual Cultures of Africa”. Ernst reports on behalf of Mary Clare that still pending reviews are reminded. The editors will meet in 2 weeks. We expect publication at the end of the year
- Exhibition "Collective Memory”: Avi suggests an online catalogue including texts about the impact and the position in respect to the dissemination of knowledge about Africa. She invites contributions (2 pages) by Bea (focusing on a historical perspective) , Patrique (focusing on education), Stefan (focusing on museum), and Bernadette (focusing on art history).
- The conference in South Africa (organized by Avi) will be postponed to March/April 2023. It will mark the starting point for the next stage of EVC (after the “documenta stage”).
- Exhibition reviews as a new part of the website. Osuanyi will write a first review about an exhibition in the Netherlands about slavery. It will be published under a new rubric on the the website.
- Activities in the context of documenta fifteen: Susanne and Katharina report about the interest of the artistic team (ruan grupa) in theory building, cooperation with universities. Thus EVC is welcome within the concept of “CAMP on education”. The main building of documenta, the Fridericianum, will function as a “school”, where knowledge sharing takes place. “CAMP on education” will be part of this “school”. EVC will be responsible for one (of 3) summer school (August 2022) and a final congress (October 2022). During the 100 days of the documenta 20 places for “art educators (students) in residence” in Kassel will be offered. There will probably be three periods for this, one month each, inviting 10 students from other countries and 10 from Germany (tandems).
The objective of the endeavor is expressed through the metaphor ‘harvest’ (as used by ruan grupa), i.e. sharing knowledge, new ideas how we can teach (together), how we can work together, how we can live together, how we can learn from each other, how can we open the institutions like schools, universities, in order to create new spaces.
Katharina, Susanne and Ernst will write a “call”, to make information available and invite the EVC partners to contribute.
- Avi suggests the establishment of an academic (accredited) international EVC journal as an archive with a focus on art and education in Africa - in interaction with other continents or a general EVC journal. It has to be online / open access. The relation to the website is discussed. (The website is more a ‘experimental’ pool for such a journal, whereas the journal is an academic paper that will help academic careers and increase the scholarship. It can be hosted by an institution in an African country or a publishing house. Avi will check possibilities and report back at the next meeting.
- In respect to this idea, Ernst recommends to observe the conference of the Africa Arts and Culture Association – that will take place in Uganda in Sept. 24-28, 2021: https://www.explore-vc.org/en/activities/news/the-1st-africa-arts-and-culture-association-international-conference-2021-in-uganda.html
- Next meeting: 2 September 10 am (South Africa Time)