VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS OF AFRICA (ViPAA)

Dotun Makun discussing his paintings at the launch of the VIPAA Focus Area, 2011. Left to right: Paul Cooper, Ismail Mahomed, Ruth Simbao, Christine Dixie, Dotun Makun and Nomusa Makhubu

Visual and Performing Arts of Africa (ViPAA) is one of four Humanities Focus Areas at Rhodes University, and was founded in January 2011 by Professor Ruth Simbao who teaches Art History and Visual Culture. The intellectual home of the research team is the Fine Art Department at Rhodes University. Participants embrace an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship, and welcome engagement with other scholars and practitioners.

The key aims of the research team are: 1) to produce high quality research outputs in the form of publications, exhibitions and performances, 2) to foster academic cooperation and collaboration by working on related research topics, and 3) to engage with society by addressing pertinent socio-political and socio-cultural concerns in relation to the arts of contemporary Africa. While our research on art and culture is embedded in a local context, it generates dialogue with the global art world, questioning ideas of ‘place’ and meaning from a geopolitical perspective.

CURRENT RESEARCH THEMES:

  • The Audacity of Place and the Global South
  • Visuality and Forms of Blindness
  • Performing Self/Performing Society

Last Modified :Mon, 11 May 2015 08:59:08 SAST