Diasporic Dispersal / Categorical Conditions

Diasporic Dispersal / Categorical Conditions                                                                                     Panel Discussion 15th May 2013                                                                                                      Stills: Scotland's Centre for Photography

As part of the curatorial research towards 'A Thousand of Him, Scattered: Relative Newcomers in Diaspora,' in 2013 Stills hosted the discursive event 'Diasporic Dispersal / Categorical Conditions' with Dr Saër Maty Bâ and Isabel Löfgren, chaired by Mother Tongue. Sparked by Edward Said’s outright rejection of the concept, the panel discussion will focus on the history, limitations, and simultaneous utility/redundancy of Diaspora as an umbrella term, interrogating its vocabulary. Tracing its defining characteristics and significance as an identifier, the panel and audience will be encouraged to hypothesise or imagine alternatives, names and methods by which to think of migrant and displaced groups. Followed by Q+A and discussion, please find documentation of the presentations below.

Dr Saër Maty Bâ researches, lectures, writes in Film Studies, Visual Culture Studies, and Critical Theory. His interests include African cinema, and ‘documentary’ voices of the ‘black’/African Diasporas, articulated through theoretical frameworks such as: ‘diaspora’; ‘race’; the ‘transnational’; and ‘Africa’-themed film festivals. Bâ is co-editor with Will Higbee of De-Westernizing Film Studies [2012] and a special edition of Journal of Media Practice titled Re-presenting Diaspora in Cinema and New [Digital] Media [2010]. He is general editor with Immanuel Ness of The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism [2014] and associate editor of The Encyclopaedia of Global Human Migration [2013]. His work has appeared in journals such as Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture. He is an editorial board member of the journal Working USA.

Upon graduating from her BA Studio Art at Smith College USA in 1997, the Swedish-Brazilian artist Isabel Löfgren worked in teaching, and media and design consultancy before returning to visual art. She participated on the CuratorLab programme at Konstfack Stockholm 2010/11 and is currently completing a PhD in Media Communications at the European Graduate School, Switzerland. Between 2005 and 2009, she was a member of the Brazilian art collective Groupo D.O.C. and in 2006, was one of ten laureates of the Hercule Florence Prize offered by the French Consulate in Rio de Janeiro. Recent exhibitions include Satellitstaden, Botkyrka Konsthall [Stockholm], the public art installation Banco de Tempo in collaboration with Patricia Gouvêaand presented at the Museu da República/Galeria do Lago, Rio de Janeiro, and the voyage-exhibition Ö - A Moebius Trip, in collaboration with Vision Forum, Stockholm archipelago [2012].