Interpretational Practices in the Postcolonial Era: Transcultural Perspectives in Cameroon, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa

July 15th – 16th, 2021

Hybrid Conference of the UNESCO Chair in Arts and Culture in Education in cooperation with the „Exploring Visual Culture“ project of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich at the Academy of the UNESCO Chair in Nuremberg, Germany

Visual Culture not only represents the world we live(d) in, it also has a great impact on how we remember and construct our pasts, how we perceive our presents and how we see and imagine our futures. In times of worldwide globalization the questions become prevalent of who is „speaking“ through visual artefacts, who can make themselves be heard/seen and who can take part in doing memory while at the same time creating a live worthy present and a  – hopefully – more sustainable future? How can spaces of interrelated, transcultural visual heritage emerge?

Against the background of these questions and assumptions the conference wants to open up a non-hegemonial discourse space to analyze the cultural formation of visual culture artifacts from sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. Lecture and discussion phases will alternate with concrete analysis workshops and three outstanding keynotes. The joint analysis work is intended to show possible potentials of different disciplinary approaches to visual analysis and understanding. A special focus will be placed on the narratives told by and through the analyzed pictures and visual artifacts with regard to „doing memory“.