Theme: Listening to the Liminal: Anti-disciplinary approaches to archival practice
“I think many artists who are not confined by one medium or invested in a linear path, often struggle to explain what it is they do exactly. The shift to ‘anti’ comes from my continued understanding of archival practice as abandoning the fantasy of completeness and embracing a shape-shifting process.” – Ethel-Ruth Tawe
We are excited to announce that our guest for our first Culture Catch Up of 2025 is Ethel-Ruth Tawe. Tawe is an anti-disciplinary artist and creative researcher exploring memory in Africa and its diaspora.
Image-making, storytelling, and time-travelling compose the framework of her inquiry. From photography, collage, and text, to moving image, installation, and other time-based media, Ethel examines culture and technology often from a speculative lens. Her burgeoning curatorial practice took form in an inaugural exhibition titled ‘African Ancient Futures’, and continues to expand in a myriad of audiovisual experiments.
In our conversation taking place on Thursday 27th of February 2025 at 18:00 EAT on Instagram live (@africadheritage) we will explore what anti-disciplinary approaches to archival practice look like. We will engage with @listening2images an experimental, time-travelling archive gathered and curated by Tawe, to think through what it means to embrace ephemerality, process, and non-linearity, as a methodology.
What to Look Forward to:
Ethel’s practice embraces fluidity and takes on multiple forms and mediums. Her insight and sharing are necessary for cultural workers/artists who feel confined to defining their work as a monolith, and her practice offers a welcoming space to those who would like to invite creativity, multiplicity, and boundlessness into their work.
