Art on My Mind Session 2: Reading Group with Kathy-Ann Tann

On Monday 11th July, NCAI’s Turn 2 Curator in residence Kathy-Ann Tan will be facilitating the second reading group session at Cheche Bookshop where we will read two more chapters from bell hooks' Art on my Mind: Visual Politics (1995) - "Critical Genealogies: Writing Black Art" and "Talking Art with Carrie Mae Weems". Departing from hooks' insistence that "this culture of resistance must be manifest in critical writing", we will discuss the ways in which literature and art have always held space for dissenting, wilful, and queer imaginations, at the same time that they languish in the playful, the slipperiness and sensuous of everyday life. Bringing the poetic and the artistic together, we will look at several works of art by Carrie Mae Weems and Lorna Simpson. Kathy-Ann Tan, will also converse with Ndegwa Nguru, manager of Cheche Books, and Alex Teyie, Managing editor at DownRiverRoad about how independent bookstores and literary journals sustainably create safe(r) spaces for community, writing, books and art. TURN2 RESIDENCY is a partnership between the German Federal Cultural Foundation @kulturstiftungdesbundes, the Center for Arts and Urbanistics (ZK/U) and the @trianglenetwork, TURN2 - Curatorial Research Residencies are held in partnership with @ncai254 in Nairobi, @bagfactoryart in Johannesburg , @gasfoundation in Lagos and @zku.berlin in Berlin. TURN 2 aims to facilitate research for emerging curators and cultural practitioners by supporting international collaborations and knowledge sharing opportunities. Image: "Touching" by Lorna Simpson