Arts Research Africa

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 regarded artist as well as a curator and scholar of African, Asian,...

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 Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town. He was most recently the head...

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 Liverpool John Moores University. It is a journey that has taken her from advanced contemporary art practice, she was winn...

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 Vienna University of Applied Arts and was a Professor of Games Desig...

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 of her rich engagement with performance and visual arts in this podcast. In the dialogue we disc...

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 in electro-accoustic music. He studied architecture at Berlin University of the...

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. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Alle School where he was the gold medal winner in his final...

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 and an Associate Researcher in the Wits School of Arts. She is an artist, art historian and writer, and hold...

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 for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape where she heads the Laborat...

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 a JAR editor and a leading exponent of the 'practice turn in contemporary theory', Michael ha...

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 has been a leading figure in the development of Performance-Research both in South Af...

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 be based in the Theatre and Performance department of the Wits School of Arts for the...

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 School of Arts at the time of this collaborative project, and Prof Jonah Choinere, from the Wits Evolut...

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 an associate professor in the department of Fine Arts at the Wits School of Arts and is a visual a...

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 Advanced Practices, an inclusive research network originating not just fr...

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 van Vuuren, and the head and founder of Drama For Life, Warren Nebe, are in discussion with Prof Christo...

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 at the University of the Western Cape as part of the ongoing African Critical...

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 discussion with Prof Christo Doherty, from the ARA (Arts Research Afri...

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 Scholarly Communications Librarian at the University of the Witwatersrand in Jo...

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 historic, Watershed: Art, science and elemental politics, conference at Wits this Se...

Where do you look for lost water? - Artistic research, arts pedagogy, and environmental politics in the Global South. A dialogue between Prof Atul Bhalla and Prof David Andrew. Held on Wed 10 October CNS Smart Seminar Room, 1st Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House. The recent ARA Artist in Residence in The Wits School of Arts, Athul Bhalla, is in dialogue with David Andrew about the experience of creatin...

This is a podcast of the 5th dialogue in the Arts Research Africa, Creative Work Supervision series in The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Entitled “Can we go beyond the Readymade? - the creation of new artistic works and the art of collaboration (within an academic environment)”, this was a dialogue between ARA Artist in Residence, Dr Kathleen Tagg, and Dr Came...

In this podcast of the 4th dialogue in the Arts Research Africa series, Christo Doherty and Thomas Pringle explore the question of how computer models, and forms of digital visualisation, have evolved a new digital media aesthetics that has a complex relationship with the understanding of climate crisis in the 21st century. Thomas Pringle is a Brown Presidential fellow and PhD candidate with the d...

Why the Creative Work PhD at Wits? A dialogue with Prof Gerrit Olivier. This dialogue introduces the Creative Work PhD supervision seminar series in the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. The series is part of the Arts Research Africa project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The seminar/dialogue took place on WEDNESDAY 25 JULY from 13:15 -...