Colorful Threads: The Interwoven Worlds of Art and Culture in the Western Indian Ocean

The third symposium in the Africa Institute’s four-part Colorful Threads season – co-organized by Prita Meier, Associate Professor of Art History at NYU, and Laura Fair, Professor of African History at Columbia University – considers the momentous cultural interactions and microeconomies of exchange among the Eastern African coastline and the islands of the western Indian Ocean; we have come to understand that these places were also important sites for creativity and imagination.

From the rich artistic traditions of music, photography, theatre, dance, ritual life, and spirit possession performances (to mention only a few examples), this symposium aims to decipher the fine print of an intricately interwoven oceanic tapestry. The focus on aesthetic sensibilities and cultural logic will necessarily engage questions of power, representation, production, consumption, and “the systems of signification emerging from a panoply of cultural forms and consciousnesses”.

This forum will bring scholars from various academic disciplines and geographical locations to ponder both symbolic and cultural capital. The full programme is here.

It’s free and open to the public (pre-registration is required). It will also be livestreamed.