Manifesta Journal 17
“Future(s) of Cohabitation”

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For the 17th issue of Manifesta Journal, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (MJ Chief Editor) and Virginie Bobin (MJ Associate Editor) are joined by Bisi Silva as MJ#17 Guest Editor.

Bisi Silva is an independent curator and the founder/director of Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Lagos). She co-curated The Progress of Love, a transcontinental collaboration across three venues in Nigeria and America (2012/2013) and co-curator for the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Greece, Praxis: Art in Times of Uncertainty (2009). In 2006 Silva was one of the curators for the Dakar Biennale in Senegal. She was a member of the Berlin Biennale 8 (2014) selection committee and a member of the international jury for the 55th Venice Biennale (2013).

MJ#17 “Future(s) of Cohabitation”

MJ#17 engages international artists, curators and thinkers to investigate the state of in-between from a trans-historical and trans-geographical point of view, with an emphasis on hyphenation in the term itself as well as on critical assessment of the legacy of the concept of “hybridity,” its contemporary relevance in the field of arts and humanities, and in society at large. Instead of focusing on the term itself, the contributors to this issue convene alternative vocabularies and positions that pay a tribute to post-colonial theory and criticism, and recent debates in cultural theory, such as the current revisitation of “Afrofuturism” or of what some have called “cultural cannibalism.”

MJ#17 includes contributions by Fatima el-Tayeb, Simon Sheikh, John Akomfrah, Aurogeeta Das, Patrick Flores, Virginie Bobin, Ruby Amanze, Kapwani Kiwanga, Adriano Pedrosa, Giulia Lamoni, Bisi Silva, Nana Oforiatta-Ayim, Sharlene Khan, Claire Tancons and Koki Tanaka.

MJ#17 public event
Manifesta Journal will host a public event titled “Future(s) of Cohabitation” inspired by the MJ#17 in partnership with Tate Modern, London. The program will take the form of a public symposium followed by workshop discussion and will feature lectures by Elvira Dyangani Ose (Curator International Art, Tate), MJ#17 contributors Fatima El-Tayeb (Associate Professor of African-American Literature and Culture, UC San Diego) and Kapwani Kiwanga (artist, Paris-based), and with the participation of the MJ#17 editorial team.

Tate Modern, London
5 April 2014
13–15:30h Symposium: Presentations by Elvira Dyangani, Fatima El-Tayeb with “Creolizing Europe” and Kapwani Kiwanga with “Speculative Certainties” followed by Q&A.

15:30h Break

16h–17:30h Workshop: Discussion with symposium speakers led by MJ#17 editorial team.

For more information about this event, click here.