03 & 04 July 2020
Digital Literature Festival
Venue: 
The event will be streamed on YouTube, where you can share questions and comments
 please click here to enter the YouTube stream starting on 3 July 2020, 12.30am CEST.

“Care, Responsibility and Solidarity: 
Narrating Resistance in Arts, Academia and Activism”
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“Fürsorge, Verantwortung und Solidarität:
Erzählen von Widerstand in Kunst, Wissenschaft und Aktivismus"
Or scroll down below

Friday Saturday
The digital festival features African and African-diasporic visual and verbal narrations about Covid-19 and the BlackLivesMatter-movement – and respective visions for resistance, solidarity and care. The digital festival invites artists (writers, visual arts, musicians), academics and activists to converse with each other – and the virtual audience all around the globe. 

We are more than happy to have amazing speakers and artists like Achille Mbembe, Alice Hasters, Veronique Tadjo, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Death in Custody, Mr. Reed, Blesz and many more!

Friday, 03. July 2020 

ALL THE TIME SPECIFICATIONS ARE CENTRAL EUROPE SUMMER TIME (CEST)

12:30 Welcome

Hosts: What the world needs now: Care, Responsibility, Solidarity

A global postcard - artists, activists and academicians sharing their views in a chain letter fashion.

With a postcard-greeting by Knowledge Lab & Vice Dean of Research CAM, Erdmute Alber.
Chair: Katharina Fink


13:00 Care and Intersectional Responsibility in Times of Covid19

Keynote:
Christine Vogt-William, Bayreuth
Chair: Stefan Ouma


13:45 Spoken Word

A literary Sonic Response by Efe Paul Azino, Lagos & Manape Shogole, Johannesburg
Chair: Kolade Igbasan



14:00 We care about this 'we'! 

Eating together, talking, exchanging, listening to music, postcard... 


14:15 Exihibition: Gazing at COVID19 in Arts and Beyond

Visual Arts matter in terms of narrating crisis and care, discrimination, and resistance. Hence, we wish to share recent impressions on care and Covid-19:

Aderemi Adegbite, photographer, Lagos
Marvin Rodríguez Torres, Santiago de Cuba
Gilbert Gabriel Omoniyi, Visual Artist, Ogun State
Nuno Silas, Visual Artist, Maputo/Bayreuth
Morrison Jusu, Visual Artist, Freetown-City
Curation & Chair: Iwalewahaus-Students
 

15:00 Reading for Solidarity and Care

As public intellectuals, many African writers have contributed to the debate on how to deal with Covid-19, some, like Véronique Tadjo co-signing an appeal by African intellectuals. We have invited African writers to share their views about Covid-19, reading texts that deal with Covid-19 and/or issues of care, solidarity, and responsibility.

Dilan Zoe Smida, with us
Ismail Bala, Poet, Kano
Abeiku Arhin Tsiwah, Poet, Accra
Mr. Reed, Poet, NYC
Chair: Tolulope Oke & Samanea Karrfalt


16:00 Reading for Solidarity and Care

Véronique Tadjo, writer, reading from London
Chair: Ute Fendler


17:00 We care about this 'we'!

Eating together, talking, exchanging...


17:30 Solidarity with the unpacifed ghosts!

Book Launch:
"Ghosts, Spectres, Revenants. Hauntology as a Way to Think and Feel Future", iwalewabooks 2020
With the editors Marie-Anne Kohl, Nadine Siegert and Katharina Fink (all scholars, Bayreuth & Johannesburg) 
Ingrid LaFleur, Detroit
Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja, Katutura
Wanelisa Xaba, scholar, Cape Town
Music: Simon Vincent, Lincoln
Chair: Katharina Fink

18:30 What Happened to the dreams? Police Violence and Racism:
A Memorial to George Floyd

Intervention: SN Nyeck (scholar, NYC) & Mr. Reed (musician, NYC), followed by a literary sonic response by Efe Paul Azino, writer, Lagos
Chair: Tomupeishe Maphosa


20:00 Lecture:
Achille Mbembe “The Universal Right to Breathe: Colonialism & the Ethics Of Memory"


Lecture by Achille Mbembe, scholar, Johannesburg 
Comment: Peggy Piesche
Chair: Susan Arndt



21:30 Sundowners & Concerts:

A Digital and Polyphonous Conversation Musical Sets:

Blesz, Amsterdam
Matchume Zango, Maputo
Childo Tomas, Barcelona.
Mr. Reed, NYC
Chair: Maximilian Schulz & Kolade Igbasan

 

Saturday, 04. July 2020 


13:00 Sexism and Racism:
What we need now: Another Form of Resistance

Covid-19 uncovers omnipresent manifestations of sexism and racism. We should address this, while replying with adjusted modes of resistance. Talk by Johanna Melissa Lukate, Cambridge & Melody Howse, Leipzig (tbc).
Keynote: Amanda Gouws, Stellenbosch
Chair: Shirin Assa


14:00 Reading for Care & Solidarity

As public intellectuals, many African writers have contributed to the debate on how to deal with Covid-19, some, like Véronique Tadjo co-signing an appeal by African intellectuals. We have invited African writers to share their views about Covid-19, reading texts that deal with Covid-19 and/or issues of care, solidarity, and responsibility. 

Blesz, Spoken Word, Amsterdam
Nicksha Mwanandimayi, Creative Non-fiction/Poetry, Windhoek
Maryam Gatawa, poet, Sokoto
Chair: Oliver Nyambi & Dikko Muhammad 


15:00 We Care About This 'we'

Eating together, talking, exchanging, listening to music, postcard…


15:15 Queer care needed! Pleasure in crisis

In conversation with activists and writers of HOLAAfrica: Tiffany Mugo, Siphumeze Kundayi and talk with iwalewabooks about the necessity of pleasure in collective work, and provide insight into the publication project "We're f*****ng here! An anthology of queer African writing".
Chair:  Ulrike Bergermann




16:15 Spoken Word

Towards Hope and Healing - Iyanu Adebiyi, poet, Lagos.
Chair: Toluope Oke

 

16:30 Connecting Dancing


Lulu Sala, Contemporary Dance & Choreographer, Maputo
Chair: Ute Fendler


17:00 Handle with care!

"Handle with Care – Post Colonial Object Matters" - A conversation based on the zine presented by iwalewabooks, which asks: What are the possibilities that can open up after an act of restitution to establish future-oriented relationships between different people, institutions and objects? How can we work with these “loaded” objects and generate a future with and for them? How can we create new platforms of welcoming these objects back on the African continent? How can we bring critical approaches from art, academic research, activism and museum practices in a fruitful dialogue with each other that works towards a responsible engagement with the colonial history and its material and immaterial traces?" Authors of the zine, Nashilongweshipe Mushaandja, Katutura & Peju Layiwola, Lagos in conversation with the editors Nadine Siegert, Johannesburg & Katharina Schramm, Bayreuth.
Chair: Katharina Fink


17:15 We Care About This 'we'!

Eating together, talking, exchanging, listening to music, postcard....


18:15 Reading for Care & Solidarity

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, writer, Kenya
Chair: Samuel Ndogo & Mingqing Yuan 


19:15 We Care About This 'we'!

Eating together, talking, exchanging, listening to music, postcard...


19:30 Reading for Resistance

Death in Custody & Spoken Word: Egbon Kola, Bayreuth, "Hatuwezi Kupumua (We Can't Breathe)". A poetic rendition of remembrance and resistance.

Chair: Katharina Fink & Tolulope Oke


20:30 Lecture & Talk:
Alice Hasters: Racism in Germany

Racism endangers people all across the globe and in the midst of Germany. Violations in Police, Institutional Representation, Language.

The author and anti-racism advocate Alice Hasters has been one of the most visible speakers in the discourse around the BLM-Movement - and she will talk about her resistance and her visions. 

Alice Hasters, Journaliste, Cologne

Chair: Susan Arndt & Shirin Assa

21:30 Sundowners & Concerts

A digital and polyphonous conversation musical sets:

Wonder Wonder, Bayreuth
3Women, Berlin
Amororo Music Dynasty, Lagos
Chair: Kolade Igbasan