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Ruth Simbao

CONFERENCES AND PUBLIC TALKS

  • 2018. Keynote address “Strategic Southernness, Reciprocal Epistemologies: Re-situating Africa-China through the Arts”. Wits African Centre for Chinese Study, Wits University, Johannesburg, 19 April 2018.

  • 2017. Chair of the panel: “Between Place and a Raised Foot: The Pace, Protest and Sway of Ambulatory Art”, and presented the paper, “Walking: Pace, Protest and Artistic Practice”. Arts Council of the African Studies Association Triennial Conference at the University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana. August 2017.

  • 2017. Keynote speaker at the symposium, “Referencing China and East Asia in Southern African Visual Culture”, Goethe Institute, Johannesburg, April 2017. Paper: “The Direction of Place and the Orientation of Discourse: Portrayals of ‘China’ that Reach Sideways”. (This symposium ran parallel to the “ChinAfrika:” symposium).

  • 2017. “A Song of Uhuru and a Difficult Dance: Anawana Haloba’s Sound Memories of TAZARA” presented at the “ChinAfrika” symposium, Goethe Institute, Johannesburg 2017. (This symposium ran parallel to the “Referencing China and East Asia in Southern African Visual Culture” symposium).

  • 2017. Invited plenary talk: “Chapungu Rising: The Centre of Gravity and an Altergeopolitics of Knowledge” at the International Conference of African Cultures (ICAC) at the National Gallery of Harare, Zimbabwe, September 2017.

  • 2015. "Walking into Africa in a Chinese Way: Hua Jiming's Mindful Entry as Counterbalance". Espaces de la culture chinoise en Afrique symposium, Fondation maison des sciences de l'homme. Paris, France. 

  • 2014. “Contemporary Art and China-Africa Relations”. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), Brooklyn Museum of Fine Art, New York.
  • 2014. “Site-Situational Performance in Cosmolocal Places: Athi-Patra Ruga and Anthea Moys”. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), Brooklyn Museum of Fine Art, New York.
  • 2014. “Blanks, Failure and Ways of Not Seeing”. Rhodes University Fine Art symposium Blind Spots and Ways of Not Seeing, October 2014.
  • 2012. “Artists and New Mobilities: Re-Visualising the China-Africa Debate” presented at the International conference Chinese in Africa/Africans in China, Monash University, Johannesburg, September 2012.
  • 2012. College Art Association (CAA). “Inter-Performance: Reciprocity and ‘Strangeness’ in South Africa’. Los Angeles, USA. February 2012.
  • 2011. Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ). “Making Way:  Contemporary Afropolitan and Sinopolitan Engagements”. Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. December 2011.   
  • 2011. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA). Los Angeles, USA. Panel Chair: “The Proximity of Distance: (South) Africa in relation to (Global) Africa”.  Paper: “Afrophobia, Afrophilia, Afro-Indifference”.  April 2011.
  • 2011. Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA), University of Cape Town, South Africa “Everyone has a relative named ‘local’”, May 2011.
  • 2011. SAVAH and CIHA symposium, Wits University, South Africa, “Cosmolocalism: Small Change in Small Places”. January 2011.
  • 2010. Invited as a keynote speaker by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal for the Próximo Futuro/Next Future conference on contemporary art and the Global South. June 2010.
  • 2009. “The Promiscuity of Place: Contemporary ‘Zambian Art’ and the Afriglobal Interface”. Invited speaker: University of Western Cape Heritage Symposium. 2009.
  • 2009. Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) colloquium on Crime Stories. “Forensic Aesthetics and Cartoon Crimes: Playing Detective in Contemporary South African Art”. June 2009.
  • 2009. African Studies Association (ASA). New Orleans, USA. “Geo-Performance in the City: Animating ‘Topographic Archives’ through Site-Specific Performance and Art”. November 2009.
  • 2008. International Conference of the Association of Cultural Studies (ACS). University of West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica. “Entangling the Spiritual and the Spectacle: Leya Performances at Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls, Zambia.” July 2008. (Conference theme: Crossroads).
  • 2008. Public talk for the official opening of the Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent exhibition curated by Simon Njami. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, Port Elizabeth. April 2008.
  • 2008. Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art (CIHA). Melbourne University, Australia. “Creating Africanicities: Contemporary Zambian Artists at an Afriglobal Interface.” January 2008. (Funded by the Getty Foundation and the Andrew Mellon Foundation).
  • 2008. South African Association of Visual Art Historians (SAVAH). Stellenbosch University, “The Aftermath of Deterritorialization: Victor Mutelekesha and Contemporary Zambian Art in the Wake of Diaspora”, September 2008.  
  • 2007. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA). School of Art & Art History and Center for African Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA. “The Living Stone: Leya Performance and the Re-Localization of Victoria Falls.” March/April 2007. (Conference theme: The African Diaspora).
  • 2007. Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER). “Performing Cultural Custodianship: Chieftainess Nkomeshya’s Political Revival of the Chakwela Makumbi Ceremony, Zambia.” October 2007.
  • 2007. Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG). South Africa. Plenary panel discussion on the Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent exhibition with Colin Richards, Anitra Nettleton, Clive van der Berg and David Bunn. September 2007.
  • 2007. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA). School of Art & Art History and Center for African Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA. March/April 2007. Roundtable discussion on the production of a Contemporary African Art textbook.
  • 2007. South African Association of Visual Art Historians (SAVAH). Wits School of the Arts, Witwatersrand University. “The Deterritorialization of an Imaginary Continent: Cape 07 and the Search for ‘Africa’ in Contemporary African Art.” September 2007.
  • 2006. African Studies Association (ASA). San Francisco, USA. Conceived and CO-chaired panel with Elisabeth Cameron: “Visual Culture and Performance in Zambia.” November 2006.
  • 2006. African Studies Association (ASA). San Francisco, USA. “Inside Out: Internal/External Dialogues in Zambian Cultural Ceremonies.” November 2006
  • 2006. South African Association of Visual Art Historians (SAVAH). Department of Fine Art, Vaal University of Technology. “The Thirtieth Anniversary of June 16: Reading the Shadow in Sam Nzima’s Photograph.” September 2006.
  • 2005. African Studies Association (ASA). Washington D.C., USA. “The Matriarch of Snow, Rain and Fire: Communion with Soli Ancestors at the Chakwela Makumbi Ceremony.” November 2005.
  • 2005. University of Kwazulu-Natal. Department of Fine Art, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. “The Dialectical Dance of the Beaded Veil: Soli Girl Initiates at the Chakwela MakumbiCeremony.” August 2005. (Conference theme: Dress in Southern Africa).
  • 2005. South African Association of Art and Architectural Historians (SAAAH). Department of Fine Art, Rhodes University, South Africa. “‘Tisangalale!’ Stylistic Slippage and the Politics of Celebration in Contemporary Zambian Ceremonies.” September 2005.
  • 2003. University of California Los Angeles. Art History department. “Theatrical Interface: The Performance of Migration at the 2002 Mutomboko Ceremony.” November 2003
  • 2003. African Studies Association (ASA). Boston, USA. Conceived and co-chaired panel with Leora Maltz: “Troubled Inheritance: Imagining Home in Contemporary South African Art.” October 2003
  • 2003.African Studies Association (ASA). Boston, USA. “‘Road Zero’: Randolph Hartzenberg at the Threshold of District Six.” October 2003.
  • 2003. College Art Association (CAA). New York, USA. “Conceptualizing Photojournalism: Re-Visions of the Soweto Uprising in Contemporary Installations.” February 2003.
  • 2003. Boston University African Studies Center. Boston, USA. “The Soweto Uprising and Contemporary Photography.” March 2003.
  • 2002. African Studies Association (ASA). Washington D.C., USA.  “Techno Tongue: The Opacity of Words in a Zambian Performance.” December 2002.
  • 2002. Princeton University. New Jersey, USA. Department of Art and Archeology graduate student conference. “Superimposed: The Western Nude and an African Mermaid.” March 2002.
  • 2002. Boston University African Studies Center, Boston, USA. “The Dona Fish in Luapula Province, Zambia.” March 2002.
  • 2002. Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Boston University Symposium. Boston, USA. “Exhibit A: The Camera’s Complicity in South African Forensic Aesthetics.” March 2002.
  • 2001. College Arts Association (CAA). Chicago, USA. “Double-Stitched: Colonial Pattern Making in the Works of Yinka Shonibare and Seydou Keita.” February 2001.
  • 2001. Boston University African Studies Center. Boston, USA. Graduate student conference. “Issues of Authenticity in West African Photography.” March 2001.
  • 2000. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada. “A Deadly Explosive on Her Tongue: Panya Clark Espinal’s African Body.” May 2000. (Part of grant for advanced research in Art History).
  • 1999. University Arts Association of Canada (UAAC). Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Canada. “There’s a Bomb in this Exhibition: Kendell Geers Charged.” 1999.
  • 1998. University Arts Association of Canada (UAAC). University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. “Displacements: The Body’s Place in a Non-Body Space.” 1998.
  • 1997. College Art Association (CAA). New York, USA. “From Exile to Liberation: South African Art Before, During and Beyond the ‘New’ South Africa.” 1997.

Last Modified: Wed, 09 Jan 2019 14:32:18 SAST