Future Lab Africa

From the Archives. My interview with Tabita Rezaire in Johannesburg, South Africa in May 2015.  I decided to re-release because our conversation seems to speak to our chaotic times. 

Tabita Rezaire (b.1989, Paris, France) is infinity incarnated into an agent of healing, who uses art as a means to unfold the soul. Her cross-dimensional practices envision network sciences – organic, electronic and spiritual – as healing technologies to serve the shift towards heart consciousness. Navigating digital, corporeal and ancestral memory as sites of resilience, she digs into scientific imaginaries to tackle the pervasive matrix of coloniality and the protocols of energetic misalignments that affect the songs of our body-mind-spirits. Inspired by quantum and cosmic mechanics, Tabita’s work is rooted in time-spaces where technology and spirituality intersect as fertile ground to nourish visions of connection and emancipation. Through screen interfaces and collective offerings, she reminds us to open our inner data centers to bypass western authority and download directly from source.

Tabita is based in Cayenne, French Guyana. She has a Bachelor in Economics (Fr) and a Master of Research in Artist Moving Image from Central Saint Martins (Uk). Tabita is a founding member of the artist group NTU, half of the duo Malaxa, and the mother of the energy house SENEB.

Tabita has shown her work internationally – Centre Pompidou, Paris; Serpentine London; MoMa NY; New Museum NY; MASP, Sao Paulo; Gropius Bau Berlin; MMOMA Moscow, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; ICA London; V&A London; National Gallery Denmark; The Broad LA; MoCADA NY; Tate Modern London; Museum of Modern Art Paris – and contributed to several Biennales such as the Guangzhou Triennial, Athens Biennale, Kochi Biennale (2018); Performa (2017); and Berlin Biennale (2016).

Lindokuhle Nkosi is like Jazz. And so is this conversation from 2015! It is a special one from the vault. An insightful conversation on human interfaces, social media, writing, ideologies of technologies, futures and more. Lindokuhle Nkosi, a writer from South Africa whose work textual work often merges with installation and performance. She has written for Mahala, Chimurenga, Africa Is A Country, City Press, Elephant Magazine, Red Bulletin, and Timeslive, and she has curated exhibitions and projects at galleries and in the public space. While floating across different genres – journalistic, reflective, experimental – her work is consistently insightful, rich in textures, and engaged with realities. Lindokuhle’s work as a writer, curator and project organizer is fervent in its radicalism, its honesty and willingness to engage her environment, and communities on the periphery. Beyond her writing, she has also engaged in interventions that explored the realm of performance employing a mixed media of texts, installations and conversations. 

Hi There! Nice to catch up with you again. In this episode we travel through time using the technology of disco with the exquisite Anna Tjé/Nyum Supernova. 

We are well on our way into 2019. In this episode we take a look at our archives. In 2015, Jepchumba interviews Kenyan digital artists and musicians Just a Band. In this look back we understand the creative process within the cultural context of modern contemporary african life for many african digital artists trying to navigate through unchartered waters. Enjoy!