October 2021 – September 2022
The Formations programme is led by the Postcolonial Studies Centre in collaboration with Bonington Gallery. The series foregrounds the work of underrepresented writers, academics, artists, intellectuals and activists worldwide who address inequalities of all kinds, often bringing people from different places and working practices together for important conversations.
In 2020-21 the series presented events focused on Black History, Literature, Art, and Critical Thinking as central to global creative and intellectual work. Events running throughout the year were prompted by the themes History, Land, Memorials, DNA, Milk, and Lace. Artists, writers and thinkers considered the structures, patterns, and materials that connect global creative and intellectual histories. Many of the events are still available to watch on Bonington Gallery’s YouTube channel.
In 2021-22 the centre will continue to explore the Inequalities by engaging with global writers, artists, and thinkers, in three themed segments: Indigeneity (October-December), Love (January – March), and Audio/Visual (May-August). In April, postgraduate researchers from the Postcolonial Studies Centre will host a conference, building on Patterns of Struggle and Solidarity, last year’s Formations conference. This year’s segments help us to develop solidarities across communities and to pose urgent questions about persistent inequalities.
Everyone is welcome to join us for free events which intend to bring together people from all over the world in important and exhilarating conversations. Events this year will include film screenings, book launches, interviews, exhibitions, conversations, and creative writing workshops and interviews delivered by prizewinning novelist Eve Makis.
The series is developed by the Postcolonial Studies Centre at NTU and directed by Dr Jenni Ramone and Dr Nicole Thiara.
Jenni Ramone is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Global Literatures at NTU. Her recent book publications include Postcolonial Literatures in the Local Literary Marketplace: Located Reading, The Bloomsbury Introduction to Postcolonial Writing, Postcolonial Theories, and Salman Rushdie and Translation. Jenni Ramone specializes in global and postcolonial literatures and the literary marketplace. She is pursuing new projects on Global Literature and Gender, and on literature and maternity.
Nicole Thiara is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature(2014-16) and On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts (2020-21). She teaches postcolonial and contemporary literature, and her areas of research are Dalit, Adivasi and diasporic South Asian literature.
October – December 2021
Formation: Indigeneity — Rights and land access, sustainability, global inequalities.
The first segment of 2021-22 pays attention to the concept of indigeneity, and to indigenous people, communities, landscapes, artists, writers, and groups. Often considered controversial and closely associated with activism and protest related to rights and land access, indigenous artists and writers are creating some of the most innovative work and asking important questions about sustainability of all forms in New Zealand, Australia, Pacific Islands, Northern Europe, and North and South America. This segment brings together creative work by indigenous writers and artists from separate locations, to forge conversations about the ways in which indigenous scholarship, activism, and creativity is central to global questions of inequality.
January – March 2022
Formation: Love — The transformative nature of the everyday feeling of love.
Destiny Ekaragha once said that Black British filmmakers were not expected to make films about ordinary family stories and everyday things – like love. This segment foregrounds the transformative nature of the everyday feeling of love in art, writing, and research, while it also helps us to think about how the concept of love is defined, understood, and restricted, if love is understood and represented in limited ways. Events in this segment consider the expression, meaning, contexts, and impact of love by exploring the work of artists, writers and thinkers, emphasising questions of gender, sexuality, race, and culture.
4-7 April 2022
Hosting a wide range of presenters from across the globe, papers explore contemporary topical issues of decolonisation and its socio-political structures. The conference is open to discussions and deconstructions of long-held dominant ideologies and narratives which function to sustain the invisibility of colonial and empirical legacies in the contemporary world.
May – August 2022
Formation: Audio/Visual — Global artists, experimental sound and the visual arts.
Audio/Visual invites conversations about the significance and impact of visual communication (art, design, imagery, media, advertising, maps) and audio communication through music, but also the impact of language choice, and conversation. Events in this segment foreground meaning conveyed by music and art, and invite attention to global artists working in experimental ways with sound and the visual arts.