This event will be held virtually. Registration required.
Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
Cosponsored by the Institute for Research in African-American Studies and the Department of African-American and African Diaspora Studies.
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED–WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE
Part of our Art/Politics, Understanding Systemic Racisms series
The Practice of Restitution: Diasporic Archive and Artform
Overarching questions: How far can artform redress gaps in historical narratives, and can contemporary creative production work as a primary document? (If ancestors are with you as you paint, then it is a primary document.) How do film, paintings, art curation, and/or cuisine tease, stretch, or embolden memory? Does this “restore” a lineage or stories? What role does verbal description/ text/ written word play in pairing with these archival expressions—if any? Is non-verbal/silent or non-textual artform open-ended, in terms of objective or story? If so, does the indeterminateness of a non-verbal creative production/archive speak towards African diasporic tradition? Maybe it’s not meant to be precise, or binary, or settled. And perhaps the emphasis is not to remedy past violence, but instead to present “impossible” stories/histories, to insist on impossible future dreaming (ernesto, sun ra, etc.). What is your imagined impossible and irrational world, either broadly or as it relates to artform?
Filmmaker and educator Nesanet Abegaze, screening her short film “Bereka”.
In conversation with Thabisile Griffin (ICLS Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Racisms)
Registration can be found here.
Bereka is a family history archive as told by matriarch Azalu Mekonnen and her granddaughter Samira Hooks. Shot on Super 8 film in Los Angeles and Gondar, Ethiopia, it captures the Ethiopian coffee ceremony and explores migration, memory, and rebirth. Join us in conversation about film-making and historical redress across time and space.
Nesanet Teshager Abegaze is an entrepreneur, educator, and experimental filmmaker. Nesanet’s work as the co-owner of Azla, a plant-based Ethiopian restaurant in Leimert Park, California, allows her to combine her passion for food, community, and storytelling into her daily practice. Nesanet’s first short film, Bereka, premiered and won the Best Experimental Film award at Blackstar Film Festival in 2019. Bereka was also an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 and Ambulante Film Festival’s Afrovisiones program, and has screened at various universities and art institutions. Her short films Afrikan Space Program Forever and Phillis Wheatley premiered at the Blackstar Film Festival in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Nesanet holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from Stanford University, a master’s degree in Secondary Science Education from UCLA, and worked in the education, non-profit, and entertainment industries before co-founding Azla with her mother, Azla Mekonene.
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