Seminar: The Art of Performing Knowledge

In this seminar Grada Kilomba explores the art of performing knowledge, creating decolonial exercises and using her unique artistic practice, in which she gives body, voice, form, movement and image to her own writings. “What is knowledge? What is acknowledged as knowledge? And whose knowledge is this?” Kilomba will explore how knowledge production, violence and power are intrinsically interwined, and investigates how to transform such configurations. Using therory, writing exercises, narrative, imagery, performance and movement, participants are invited to transform configurations of power and knowledge and to re-imagine new spaces and languages of decolonial thinking. Participants will work with their voices, bodies, and writings to understand fundamental terminologies such as Illusion, Dellusion, Denial, Projection, Memory, Erasure, Resilliance, Surveillance, Marginalisation, Resistance, Trauma, Liberation; Empowerment, Time, Space. Moreover, participants will explore forms of decolonising knowledge production, language and aesthetics.

First of three blocks of the seminar as part of the Angela Davis Visiting Professorship 2024.