(Un)rooting Knowledge

In this gathering our focus was on alternative artistic processes and materials, and what’s lost and dispossessed in the afterlife of colonialism. Across East Africa and its diasporas, there’s an ongoing investment in linking restitution with questions of land, dispossession, and ancestral lifeworlds. Many artists and designers have developed practices that extend beyond the Eurocentric notion of ‘sustainable practices’, foregrounding rituals of memory-keeping and memory-making as intrinsic to these practices.  These topics were highlighted also within the wider concept of re-routing/decoding knowledge.

Additionally, with the workshop ‘Working With Barkcloth Histories’ led by Sheila Nakitende, we explored process-based materials and how artistic, design, and activist practices create and document the use of traditional materials such as raffia, banana fiber, and handmade bark cloth. In what ways does this deconstruction and reconstruction of material(s) relate to  the relationship between humans, their environment, and memory work? And how can the reworking of traditional techniques such as weaving and stitching be understood as integral  to human survival, meditation, and healing in these fast-paced times?

Through this program, we sought to unpack and (un)learn how restitution, material culture, dispossession and climate justice are interlinked and can be expanded beyond the object by focusing on the lifeworlds that connect us to practices that are centered around ancestral knowledge and collective creation.

Participants included Damien Ajavon, Amal Alhaag, AYO, Teesa Bahana, Banji Chona, Letaru Dralega, Russel Hlongwane, Luanda Carneiro Jacoel, Liz Kobusinge, George Mahashe, Sheila Nakitende, Christian Nyampeta, Robel Temesgen, and Selene Wendt.

Afropocene StudioLab, Kampala, Uganda August 13-14, 2025
Image courtesy of Banji Chona