Book launch: Reshaping the Field
Join us on Thursday 15 June 5.30-7.30pm for the launch of our newest Exhibition Histories publication Reshaping the Field: Arts of the African Diasporas on Display at the Stuart Hall Library. There will be brief introductions to the texts from editor Nana Adusei-Poku and artist collective Languid Hands (Rabz Lansiquot & Imani Mason Jordan).
The thirteenth title in the series, Reshaping the Field: Arts of the African Diaspora on Display explores key moments that have created ruptures in how Blackness has been framed through exhibitions, emphasising how Black artists have been viewed and African diasporic art histories have been shaped.
Languid Hands is a London-based artistic and curatorial collaboration between Rabz Lansiquot, a filmmaker, curator, and DJ, and Imani Robinson, writer, live art practitioner, and prison abolitionist. Their work is informed by ongoing explorations in Black and queer studies, Black creative practice, Black liberatory praxis and queer methodologies.
Nana Adusei-Poku is an Assistant Professor in the History or Art and African American Studies Department at Yale University. She was prior Assistant Professor in African Diasporic Art History in the Department of History of Art at the University of California Berkeley. She was previously Associate Professor and Luma Foundation Fellow at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (2019-2022), and Visiting Professor in Art History of the African Diaspora at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City (2018-2019). The question “What are the conditions of our existence”, which Stuart Hall asked, remains core to her journey and inspires her to embody and develop an engaged pedagogical approach and to explore the performativity of nothingness and life “in the hold”. Her research on Cultural Shifts and how they articulate themselves through the intersections of Art, Politics, and Popular Culture; Artistic productions from the Black Diasporas, and curatorial practice as a research tool to shape art historical discourses.