The Unruly Archive:
Rehearsing for Epistemic Restitution
As part of the collaboration between Sustaining the Otherwise and G.A.S. Foundation, we are pleased to share that artists Quinsy Gario and Sasha Huber were selected for artist residencies that took place at G.A.S. Foundation in late 2025. Sasha Huber’s recidency resulted in the creation of a portrait dedicated to the late Bisi Silva, which was donated to CCA, Lagos for permanent display .
Following the invitation for Sustaining the Otherwise to participate in the Re:assemblages symposium, we contributed with a panel session titled The Unruly Archive: Rehearsing for Epistemic Restitution.
During this session, we explored the complexities of ongoing discussions about restitution, aiming to foreground important spaces, conversations and practices within Africa and its diasporas. In what ways does the discourse around restitution and policymaking, including prevailing notions of reparative futures, mirror the systemic and structural colonial and racial status quo? Rehearsing together means unpacking the ways in which existing practices, toolkits, strategies, and networks either reinforce current power structures or succeed in challenging structures of exploitation and domination. It involves a collective effort to understand how to undo or shift power structures and to foster a more nuanced conversation about the intricate interplay between knowledge, power, and societal structures.
We think of The Unruly Archive as a site of study and a space for sharing knowledge(s), practices, materials, and subversive strategies that offer a path forward through the complexities of ongoing restitution debates.
For this panel session Quinsy Gario, Selene Wendt and Amal Alhaag offered provocations, propositions and potential approaches to thinking about restitution, unruly knowledge and the counter-archive.
Following the invitation for Sustaining the Otherwise to participate in the Re:assemblages symposium, we contributed with a panel session titled The Unruly Archive: Rehearsing for Epistemic Restitution.
During this session, we explored the complexities of ongoing discussions about restitution, aiming to foreground important spaces, conversations and practices within Africa and its diasporas. In what ways does the discourse around restitution and policymaking, including prevailing notions of reparative futures, mirror the systemic and structural colonial and racial status quo? Rehearsing together means unpacking the ways in which existing practices, toolkits, strategies, and networks either reinforce current power structures or succeed in challenging structures of exploitation and domination. It involves a collective effort to understand how to undo or shift power structures and to foster a more nuanced conversation about the intricate interplay between knowledge, power, and societal structures.
We think of The Unruly Archive as a site of study and a space for sharing knowledge(s), practices, materials, and subversive strategies that offer a path forward through the complexities of ongoing restitution debates.
For this panel session Quinsy Gario, Selene Wendt and Amal Alhaag offered provocations, propositions and potential approaches to thinking about restitution, unruly knowledge and the counter-archive.