Arts Research Africa Arts Research Africa Dialogues

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
44 Episodes
20 – 40

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

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 - Performance and Research: a discussion with Annette Arlander.

In this ARA dialogue I speak with the first ARA artist-in-residence of 2020, Annette Arlander. Professor Arlander is an artist, researcher and a teacher, and one of the pioneers of Finnish performance art, as well as being a trailblazer of artistic research in Scandinavia. As an ARA artisti-in-residence- she will…
25 Feb 2020 35 min

ARA Podcast - Bones and Dinosaurs: Art/Science collaborations

In this ARA dialogue I speak to three Wits academics who have creatively engaged, in both their research and teaching, with the interface between Scientific and Artistic research. My guests are Dr Justine Wintjes and Joni Brenner who were both members of the History of Art department in the Wits…
4 Dec 2019 56 min

ARA Podcast - Creativity, agency, and African feminisms

In this ARA dialogue I speak to Professor Sharlene Khan and Fouad Asfour about the recent African Feminisms (Afems) Conference which was held at the Wits School of Arts from 5 to 7th September. Sharlene and Fouad were both organizers of the conference together with Lynda Gichanda Spencer. Sharlene is…
15 Oct 2019 46 min

ARA Podcast - New developments in Artistic Research in Europe

In this ARA dialogue, I discuss new developments in the European space of Artistic Research with Professor Stefan Winter, Head of the Institute of Artistic Research at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF in Potsdam, Germany. Prof Winter also represents Germany in a new institutional development: the European Forum for…
4 Oct 2019 40 min

ARA Podcast - the innovative new PhD programme in Drama for Life

In this ARA dialogue, we discuss the new PhD programme at Drama for Life in the Wits School of Arts. This programme, launched in 2017, has just won the 2019 Wits Faculty of Humanities Individual Teaching and Learning Award for Postgraduate Teaching. The designer of the programme, Dr Petro Janse…
17 Sep 2019 42 min

ARA Podcast - Ethnographies and Art Practices as Research in Africa

In this ARA dialogue, we look at the changing relationship between ethnographies and art practice as research in Africa. The dialogue was prompted by the recent workshop on African ethnographies which was organised by Dr Jung Ran Annachiara Forte and Prof Sakhumzi Mfecane from the Department of Anthropolog and Sociology…
26 Jun 2019 48 min

ARA Podcast - The Challenge of publishing artistic research on a digital platform

In this ARA dialogue, we explore the thinking behind Ellipses the innovative online publishing platform for creative research that has been just issued a submission call for its third issue. [www.ellipses.org.za] The editor-in-chief/digital editor of Ellipses, Dr Tegan Bristow, and the editor of issue 3, Dr Mareli Stolp, are in…
30 May 2019 44 min

ARA Podcast - Denise Nicholson: Open Access, APCs, and Predatory Publishing Practices

Open Access is an international movement that aims to “make the products of research freely accessible to all.” Here in the global South, the movement is becoming increasingly influential across many universities, with Wits adopting Open Access as official policy in June 2018. In this ARA podcast, Denise Nicholson, the…
5 Mar 2019 1 hr 03 min

ARA Podcast - Did Watershed bridge the Art-Science divide?

Did the Watershed Conference bridge the Art-Science chasm? A dialogue between Prof Lenore Manderson and Christo Doherty. This is the 7th dialogue in the Arts Research Africa, Creative Work Supervision series in The Wits School of Arts and was held on Wed 17 October. Lenore Manderson conceptualised and directed the…
21 Oct 2018 50 min
20 – 40