About Thembinkosi:
Thembinkosi Goniwe is an artist and art historian whose research interests are in modern and contemporary visual arts. Focused areas are on African art, postcolonial and decolonial discourses, criticism and curating of exhibitions, which are engaged in the context of black radical thoughts and global south discourses. He is a senior lecturer in the department of Fine Art at Rhodes University. He holds PhD and MA from Cornell University and an MFA from the University of Cape Town.
About keynote presentation:
Five Theses on the Re-Presentations of City-Outskirts in South African Songs and Pictures
This keynote address meditates on city outskirts’ significance, which feature title, subject matter, form or reference, and metaphor in selected South African songs and pictures. Appreciating the sonic and visual re-presentations of city outskirts, I explore five theses that pertain to inquiries into the historical archive, memory bank, productivity of the margins, psychology of the everyday and rediscovery of the ordinary. At the base of my meditation are reflections on the inextricable relationship between politics and aesthetics in expressive forms by which the re-presentations of city outskirts in South African songs and pictures are imagined and configured.