an elsewhere

& an otherwise

writing, research and residencies

“An Elsewhere & an Otherwise” is my concept and focus of research and writing inspired by a passage from Saidiya Hartman’s book

“Beautiful Experiments and Wayward Lives”referring to and bringing the ‘where, ‘and the ’other’ into the ‘here’ and the ‘same’. I have situated this place, space and mode of understanding in a present and a past that is intangible, invisible and impossible yet, I have touched, seen and know: the heart of Africa, in the flows of the Zambezi and the pathway of Lobito dissipated and dispersed in the Atlantic to the new world while lapping back up on the shores where silk and spice grew the appetite of kuzhinguluka.

Building upon bell hooks Margin Centre Theory, I seek to spotlight the unknown and the forgotten legacies and histories of the languages, labour, mines, music, stages, shebeens and screens of Angola, Zambia and the Congo. So far in this research journey, there is the knowledge in spirit, body and institution, of what is hidden and what is lost, so perhaps we give in to speculating what might have, could have, would have happened and what did happen in the history we thought we knew, questioning further what is happening in the present we think we know and uncovering what did happen in the history we did not think of at all.

FEATURED IN & WORKED WITH:

In all of this, there is no goal to achieve a conclusion, established archive or internet institution. Even with much of this focus being one in history, for even history remains changing and fluid, I am most interested in situating in the present, mirroring that change and fluidity, perhaps discovering moments of mystery, holding the waves of the past for longer than the impossible, intangible and invisible. This is a practice , for catching, keeping, releasing, forgetting, reminding and getting closer to how we ended up here and not elsewhere, not otherwise.