Join Dr Carol Ann Dixon and Ali Akbar Mehta as they engage in a discussion on the new perspectives of building cultural meaning and creating contemporary narratives in Western arts and cultural institutions.
They will also be joined by Neicia Marsh, Programme Director of Society, from the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland. The discussion is moderated by Monica Gathuo.
This seminar is the first instalment of a 7-part discussion series called “In Conversation with the Finnish Institutes” hosted by the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes (Benelux, Berlin, Middle East, New York, Oslo, Paris, and the UK + Ireland). Each of the 7 discussions, which will take place online from October 2021 until January 2022, will focus on different subject matters from decolonisation to Sámi arts and culture.
Please register for the event by clicking the link below which will take you to our Eventbrite page. Registration for the event will close on 12 October.
In conversation with the Finnish Institutes: Decolonisation in the arts and cultural fields, 13.10 at 16-17 BST /18-19 EEST online. Register here. You can now watch the discussion on our Youtube channel, check it out by clicking here.
Dr Carol Ann Dixon
Dr Carol Ann Dixon is a cultural geographer and education consultant based in London. She gained her BA (Hons) in Geography and Philosophical Aesthetics from the University of Lancaster, followed by an MA (with Distinction) in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London, prior to completing her doctorate in the Geography Department at the University of Sheffield – examining “The ‘othering’ of Africa and its diasporas in Western museum practices” (2016). Her current postdoctoral research examines anti-racist and decolonial policy perspectives, pedagogies and practices within the context of museums, galleries, heritage and the arts. She blogs at https://museumgeographies.com/.
Ali Akbar Mehta
Ali Akbar Mehta (b.1983, Mumbai) is a Transmedia artist, curator, and researcher. Through a research-based practice, he creates immersive cyber archives that map narratives of history, memory, and identity, through multifocal lenses of violence, conflict, and trauma. Such archival mappings – as drawings, paintings, new media works, net-based projects, poems, essays, and theoretical texts, as well as performances both of bodies and networks, are rooted in datafeminist posthumanist critical theories seeking to complicate taxonomies of value, power, and privilege. His ongoing doctoral research titled, ‘Practicing Online Performativity: Constructing Politically Conscious Archives for the Future’, is interested in exploring the performative relations between online archives and its users through mediated interventions of Second Order Cybernetics, to create knowledge systems that outline a vibrant new political public sphere.
