Arts Research Africa Dialogues

These dialogues from the Wits School of Arts, Arts Research Africa project, are intended to stimulate practice, enable research, and inspire collective engagement around the question of Arts Research in Africa. Art lecturers and postgraduate students in the Wits School of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, are grappling with the challenge of positioning arts research in an African context. These podcasts seek to develop a dialogue with both national and international practices and debates.

Occasionally English Explicit South Africa Arts · Education Christo Doherty

45 Episodes

12 – 32

Brett Pyper: From Jazz Cosmologies to the Cosmopolitan Collective

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Prof Brett Pyper, the Principal Investigator on the ARA project and the leader of a major interdisciplinary research project based on popular manifestations of jazz culture in South Africa. Currently called the Cosmopolitan Collective, the project has evolved over the…

24 Oct 2022 55 min

Ways-of-Remembering-Existing: donna Kukama rewrites history & writes performance

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to donna Kukama, a South African born interdisciplinary artist who works with performance, works on canvas, sculptural objects, video, and site-specific installation. The underlying topic of this conversation is how donna uses performance art and other practices as tools for artistic…

28 Sep 2022 50 min

Shooting Down Babylon (The Art of War): The performance art of Tracey Rose

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Tracey Rose, currently Senior Lecturer in the Fine Arts department in the Wits School of Arts, and internationally renowned as an artist who works across a range of practices, but most notably as a performance artist using her body. Tracey’s…

31 Aug 2022 46 min

Art, Research, and Innovation: Hannelie Coetzee's ecological public art

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Hannelie Coetzee, a Johannesburg-based ecological artist who has been working across the boundaries of art, science and activist engagement. Hannelie describes herself as a visual artist, researcher and innovator. Through her ecological art practice, she aims to grow audiences that…

28 Jul 2022 51 min

Invisibility and hyper-visibility: Portia Malatjie and Nontobeko Ntombela on curating When Rain Clouds Gather

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Dr Portia Malatjie and Nontobeko Ntombela, the curators of When Rain Clouds Gather, an important new exhibition at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town. The exhibition is a reflection on the influential and often unacknowledged contribution of Black Women to…

22 Jun 2022 59 min

Avril Joffe: Engaging Arts Policy with Creative Methodologies

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Avril Joffe, currently the postgraduate programme coordinator and previously the Head of the Department of Cultural Policy and Management in the Wits School of Arts. Under Avril’s headship the department was renamed to focus on cultural policy and management, and…

28 May 2022 1 hour

Interlocutor/halfie: Dr George Mahashe on being a Molobedu, an artist and an academic

In this dialogue, Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Dr George Mahashe, a lecturer in Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town, who was recently based at the Geneva Observatory as part of the Swiss Artists-in-Labs programme. George talks about his work at the Observatory and his perspective…

19 Apr 2022 1 hr 04 min

Exploring the spaces between - Marcus Neustetter's playful interventions into art, science, and public engagement

In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty of ARA speaks to Marcus Neustetter, the South African artist, cultural activist, and producer who has been working at the intersection of art, science, technology and public engagement for the last two decades since his graduation with an MAFA from Wits in 2001. They…

23 Mar 2022 1 hr 01 min

Irène Hediger & Artists-in_Labs: exploring the unknown across diverse disciplines

In this dialogue, I speak to Irène Hediger, the director of the Artists-in -Labs programme based at the Zurich University of the Arts in Switzerland. The programme, which has now been running continuously for the last nineteen years, is one of the most successful Arts-Science initiatives in the world and…

22 Feb 2022 56 min

Art-Science engagements: Karel Nel's brilliant darkness

In this dialogue, I explore the challenging and increasingly important concept of Art~Science creative collaboration with one of the leading International practitioners in this field, the South African artist, Karel Nel. Until 2017, Karel was an Associate Professor in the department of Fine Arts at Wits, and is an internationally…

20 Jan 2022 58 min

Re-centering Africa through artistic research and decolonial pedagogy: a conversation with Prof Samuel Ravengai

In this dialogue, I speak to Prof Samuel Ravengai, a leading exponent of artistic research into African modes of performance and theatre making, a multi faceted mode of enquiry that he theorises as Afroscenology. Samuel is a Zimbabwean born, South African based, scholar and theatre director with a doctorate in…

23 Nov 2021 57 min

Taking contemporary art practice into the forensic lab: a conversation with Dr Kathryn Smith

Dr Kathryn Smith is an interdisciplinary visual artist and curator who has moved from an initial education in Fine Arts (with a BAFA and MAFA from Wits) to actively explore applied sciences at the University of Dundee where she earned an MSc in Forensic Art, and a PhD from the…

18 Oct 2021 1 hr 06 min

ARA Podcast - A ludic approach to artistic research - a conversion with Prof Margarete Jahrmann

In this dialogue I speak to Professor Margarete Jahrmann, the internationally renowned media artist, artistic researcher and games theorist who has just been appointed head of the new department of Experimental Game Cultures at the Vienna University of Applied Arts. Margarete was previously a Professor in Artistic Research at the…

12 Aug 2021 44 min

At the centre of the Centre for the Less Good Idea - a conversation with Bronwyn Lace

In this dialogue I speak to Bronwyn Lace, perhaps best known as the animateur, and now co-director, of the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, but who is also a visual artist with specificity, responsiveness and performativity as central concerns in her practice. We explore all these aspects…

1 Jun 2021 55 min

ARA Podcast - The aesthetic as a research modality - a conversation with Dr Alex Arteaga

In this dialogue I speak to Dr Alex Arteaga, a leading European artist-researcher who works with text, sound, video, photography, essays and installations according to the nature of his projects and their specific research issues. Alex has received professional degrees in piano and theory of music, has a Masters degree…

19 May 2021 47 min

ARA Podcast - Artistic Research in Africa - a conversation with Berhanu Ashagrie Deribew

In this ARA dialogue I speak with the Ethiopian artist-researcher who gave the closing address at our ARA2020 Conference. Berhanu is currently a lecturer in the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design at Addis Ababa University and is a doctoral candidate in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna…

11 May 2021 55 min

ARA Podcast - Transversing the Rural - a conversation with Dr Same Mdluli

In this dialogue I speak to Dr Same Mdluli, who was the recipient of a 2020 ARA grant for her book project: Transversing the Rural: Revisiting the works of South African artist Johannes Mashego Segogela. Dr Mdluli is the Manager and Chief Curator of the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg…

14 Nov 2020 41 min

ARA Podcast - Researching the Arts of Movement - a conversation with Prof Jane Taylor

In this dialogue I speak to Professor Jane Taylor, who, together with Nhlanhla Mahlangu, gave the opening performance and dialogue, at the ARA2020 Conference, which was held here at Wits University in January. Jane currently holds the Andrew W. Mellon Chair of Aesthetic Theory and Material Performance at the Centre…

22 Aug 2020 56 min

ARA Podcast - The Journal for Artistic Research: a conversation with Dr Michael Schwab

In this dialogue I speak to Dr Michael Schwab, the co-initiator and inaugural Editor-in-Chief of JAR, the Journal for Artistic Research. Michael was most recently a keynote speaker at the ARA2020 Conference, on the theme of artistic research in Africa, which was held here at Wits University in January. As…

5 Aug 2020 52 min

ARA Podcast - The Hybrid model of Performance-Research: A conversation with Mark Fleishman

In this ARA dialogue I speak with Mark Fleishman, Professor and Head of the Centre for Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, University of Cape Town and artistic director (together with Jennie Reznik and Mandla Mbothwe) of Magnet Theatre, an independent theatre company he established in Cape Town in 1987. Mark…

23 May 2020 48 min