Videos

http://www.crowdcast.io/e/tpltadjo?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=profile_web&utm_campaign=profile
Veronique Tadjo: In the Company of Men
Abubakar Zein invokes our collaboration, the 100 days project between Wangechi Mutu and me as the anchor for his keynote. From: 56.03. With gratitude for his generosity.
SFU Students Isabella Wang, Jaynie Calder and Gabby Y wove knowledge in a collaboration on 100 Days. They say: Nonetheless, we did still want to work on something collaboratively. Not just to present our papers individually, but put our hands and creative energy into making something together. But in doing so, our intention was not just to create art, but to challenge ourselves to think about how as scholars and students who do not share the particular history of the Rwanda Civil War, how do we reconcile with the beauty of collaborative creation especially while working with a body of work that at times discredits and/or is skeptical towards the relentlessness of ongoing beauty following an event as horrific and shocking as the Rwanda genocide? Likewise then, where the decision of creating an art piece presents an ethical risk, making a straightforward presentation the traditional, and perhaps 
“safer” route for us 
to take, how do we perform solidarity and support beyond 
the
 
confines of an argumentative paper most familiar to us? What responsibility do we bear as students, readers, and witnesses? In other words, for us, what this project was mattered a lot. Care and intention also mattered. 


Eventually, a word that came to mind was twine, as in entwine, knot, weave. We came up with the idea of a mural / weaving with twine that the entire class could collaborate on, and a gift we could send to you once we were done. Hence, 100 knots on colourful fabrics, with word bundles written on them that showcases 100 ways that you are a collaborator, that collaboration shapes and configures your work as a whole (we didn’t limit it to just 100 Days, but work like Guantlet and un/settled as well), and all the different ways that your book spoke to us. The stick was a gift from the earth that we found very serendipitously on a forest walk. Hanging down from it, are 35 pieces of twine, each measured against the previous strand as we cut them so that every strand exists in relational dialogue with the others. There are 20 black and gold twine, symbolizing the powerful collaboration between you and Wangechi following #kwibuka20. The 15 khaki strands together make 30 once we tied them, which is how many people are in our class including Sophie, embracing the dialogues and significance of your work.