Five weeks into the Annotations Programme, G.A.S. Foundation invited guests to share in our learnings on archival practice, and explore our research into Pan-African Festivals such as FESTAC '77. We were joined for a reading session hosted by our Research Associates and Interns-in-Residence, developed in response to the mentorship of Archival Consciousness, who work with archivists and institutions to make library collections more accessible.
Tomiwa Adegbola, the coordinator of the Annotations programme at G.A.S. Lagos opened with an introduction of the foundation and the programme, after which Maryam Kazeem offered further insight into the programme. The first session was led by Neil Grasty and Yosola Adeniran, who anchored a reading of "Entangled Panafrica: Four Festivals and an Archive," by Malaquais, Dominique, and Vincent Cédric. Guests then broke out for reading sessions with a curated selection of texts, which were interrogated in conversation that was driven by set provocations.
Using Archival Consciousness’ methodology of documenting interactions with archival and literary material, the session invited artists, researchers, and archivists to interact with selected reading materials. After interrogating the given materials in conversation with the associates and each other, guests collaboratively contributed their annotations to a wall installation that would go on to be exhibited at the next library activation, titled Into The Timeline: A Research Collage of Pan-African Festivals. The Research Associates led by Ufuoma Ogbemudje and Amaya Loubeau, used a mobile archive unit inspired by the Silverfish model, to record instances of guests interacting with the selected books. This unit helps to understand what archiving looks like on a day-to-day basis, and how cultural institutions create shared memory systems.
Event Details
Date: 19th July 2024
Time: 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Location: 9b, Hakeem Dickson Drive, off TF Kuboye Road, Oniru, Lagos.
This event was realised as part of the Annotations Public Programme. Annotations is a six-month project that explores major African cultural festivals and their dual nature as historic events and repositories of postcolonial pan-African encounters. Led by co-curators Naima Hassan and Maryam Kazeem, Annotations engages the complex histories of FESMAN, PANAF, Zaire 74, and FESTAC'77
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Annotations Research Associate Programme
Selected participants from our Annotations Research Associate Programme open call are participating in a seven-week-long Programme that falls under the wider scope of G.A.S. Library and Picton Archive’s Re:assemblages project. They are budding multidisciplinary curators, Adeyosola Adeniran and Ufuoma Ogbemudje, and independent archivist, Osayame Emokpae-Ozoro. Learn about the associates here.
The Annotations Research Associate Programme is generously supported by Femi Akinsanya.
Archival Research Interns
G.A.S. Foundation partnered with Spelman College, and the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective (AUC Collective) to facilitate internships for three student members under our Annotations programme. Following a call for applications within the AUC Collective, Amaya Loubeau, Neil Grasty, and Robyn Simpson emerged as recipients of the G.A.S. Foundation Library and Archival Research Internship. Learn about the interns here.
Archival Consciousness
Archival Consciousness was initiated by artist Mariana Lanari and graphic designer Remco van Bladel to collaborate with libraries and archives in cultural institutions. They engage in close collaboration with archivists to implement methods and infrastructure aimed at enhancing accessibility of their collections. The focus lies on the long-term preservation and dissemination of physical archives, in conjunction with the digital archive. The digital component, specifically the databases of these archives, serves as the foundation for their work. They are currently in the process of developing a shared and community-oriented Knowledge Graph that serves as an interaction layer on top of the existing databases of libraries and archives. The platform aims to facilitate the process of discovery, browsing, and navigation for users