'Absent Audience' virtual conference
‘Absent Audience’ is a two-day virtual conference, organized by the Advanced Practices Laboratory at Goldsmiths College, University of London, presenting collaborative research on the Johannesburg Biennial 1997 as a reflection on a case study from the middle. During the two days we will be providing the opportunity to engage with questions of knowing, remembering, methods of navigation and multiplicity of knowledges.
By working from the middle, the Advanced Practices Laboratory has been reversing the traditional case study; we are not simply looking at the Biennal’s history, specific events within it, or its impact but ‘looking otherwise’; mixing investigative data with different affects, temporalities and imaginaries. In positing all of us as the contemporary audience for the historical event of 1997, we are asking whether its horizon of ambitions has been able to project forwards.
As absent audiences, looking at the Biennial from our current temporality provides opportunities for unframing the event from the singular arguments of exhibition history, accepting instead that we can never grasp anything fully and frontally. Rather, it is in the fragments of how it operated, in the traces and oblique testimonials it left behind that we can connote the event in the present.
The Advanced Practices Laboratory consists of four groups exploring the Biennial through its activities, intensities, intentions and persistent myths. The groups are: Curatorial, Narratives, Affect and Lacunae. The Laboratory is a collective research component of the MRes/PhD in Advanced Practices. The ‘Absent Audience’ event is supported by the CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership and the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths.
Photo - Werner Maschmann.
Guest Speakers
Gabi Ngcobo
Gabi Ngcobo is an artist and curator and is currently the Curatorial Director at the Javett Art Centre, at the University of Pretoria, SA. She is also a facilitator within collaborative platforms such as the Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR), which she co-founded in 2010. The CHR explores how historical traditions in contemporary art are developed and dispatched. As one of the original instigators of NGO - Nothing Gets Organised in Johannesburg, she has examined the processes of self-organisation that take place in zones that she considers external to these regimes of control. She was curator of the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018) called “We Don’t need Another Hero”.
Sarah Pierce
Sarah Pierce is an artist based in Dublin. She is currently a lecturer in the School of Visual Culture at the National College of Art and Design Dublin. Since 2003, she has used the term 'The Metropolitan Complex' to describe her work. Despite its institutional resonance, this title does not signify an organisation. Instead, it demonstrates Pierce's broad understanding of cultural work, articulated through various working methods, involving performances, interviews, archives, exhibitions and self-publishing.
PROGRAMME
All times are UTC+1 (British Summer Time)
Day One: Thursday 10th June 2021
12:00-12:15 Introduction to Advanced Practices - Irit Rogoff
12:15-12:45 Introduction to the Johannesburg Biennial 97
- Francesca Lazzarini and Haruna Takeda
12:45-13:30 Guest Speaker: Sarah Pierce
13:30-14:00 Discussion
14:00-15:00 Lunch Break
15:00-15:35 Curatorial Group
15:35-16:10 Narratives Group
16:10-16:40 Breakout Rooms
16:40-17:00 Screen Break
17:00-17:30 Wrap-up Discussion
Day Two: Friday 11th June 2021
12:00-12:15 Introduction/Summary Day 2 - Irit Rogoff
12:15-13:00 Guest Speaker: Gabi Ngcobo
13:00-13:30 Discussion
13:30-14:30 Lunch Break
14:30-15:05 Lacunae Group
15:05-15:40 Affect Group
15:40-16:00 Screen Break
16:00-16:30 Breakout Rooms
16:30-17:15 Wrap-up Discussion & Conference Closing