At the 4th International EVC / Technical University of Kenya Conferencein Nairobi, EVC took the opportunity to present its latest series of four books to the public. Prof. Paul Wambua, DVC at TUK, ceremoniously cut the ribbon, and Runette Kruger, one of the co-editors, presented the books.
- Lize Kriel, Bernadette Van Haute, Ernst Wagner (Eds.). Exploring documenta fifteen - Conversations between South and North. (Link)
- Lize Kriel, Bernadette Van Haute, Ernst Wagner (Eds.). Exploring art education - Transculturality and social entanglement (Link)
- Lize Kriel, Runette Kruger, Bernadette Van Haute, Ernst Wagner (Eds.). Exploring art in collaboration - Visual cultures crossing borders (Link)
- Runette Kruger, Lize Kriel (Eds.). Exploring art in response - Visual cultures and glocal concerns (Link)
The project that culminated in this series of books developed from what was originally meant to be a book of chapters in which artists, researchers and arts educators would respond to the documenta 15 exhibition held in Kassel, Germany, in 2022. The material gathered exceeded what could be accommodated in a single book, and was thematically re-configured to become four books.
Book one, Exploring documenta fifteen - Conversations between South and North, consists of the originally envisaged reflections, experiences and interpretations of the world exhibition documenta with the controversies and new curatorial directions that 2022 saw. The second theme, addressed in Exploring art education - Transculturality and social entanglement, places the spotlight on art education from a transcultural perspective with a focus on dialogue between the Global South and Global North and contributions from the arctic to South Africa. Still highlighting the importance of sustained trans- and intercultural dialogue and exchange, Exploring art in collaboration - Visual cultures crossing borders positions the act of crossing borders as imaginative and paradigm-shifting work carried out by artists and knowledge workers in the visual arts. In crossing borders (between the international and local, the traditional and the contemporary, memory and the future), the book itself constitutes a kind of in-between space where possibility and cultural competence are fostered. The last book, Exploring art in response - Visual cultures and glocal concerns, shows how artists, art educators and scholars address challenges that range from the local and the particular to commonly experienced social ills prevalent from North to South. Such commonly experienced challenges include gender and socio-economic inequality, among other issues. The arts are demonstrated to be powerful enablers of critical engagement and newness without which our worlds would stagnate.
The launch itself was a grand occasion. Prof Suki Mwendwa also launched her book Sing your song, from which she graciously read several passages. The official cutting of the ribbon was accompanied by a bang and celebratory confetti exploding into the air. The Technical University of Kenya went all out to make it a memorable occasion for all present.
Runette Kruger
