Phokeng Tshepo Setai

Phokeng Setai is a research fellow in the Centre for Humanities Research and a doctoral candidate in the department of Anthropology at the University of the Western Cape. In his doctoral research, Setai explores the evolution of curatorial practice as an independent field of cultural production on the African continent. His study is conducted by means of investigating the strategies that Black-African curatorial practitioners incorporate in the discursive and applied articulation of their practices in the form of exhibition-making, publication or institution-building. He draws from his ethnographic research on the lives and practices of three prominent Black-African curatorial producers to understand how their praxes have influenced modes of cultural production emerging out of the African art world in the present day. Setai holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of the Free State, under a program called The Narrative Study of Lives. He is co-founder of About00Time, a digital cultural work initiative founded while doing archival research in the Mayibuye Archives at the University of the Western Cape. About00Time, which makes use of artifactual and cultural archives to speculate and probe the possibilities of new cultural imaginaries into the contemporary, will be releasing its first book publication - Creativity Under Confinement - in the second quarter of 2021. This collaborative book project, of which Setai is co-editor, was conceptualised during the early stages of the global lockdown in 2020. Phokeng is also co-founder of the Mutha_Ship Landing, an artistic project space located in Salt River, Cape Town, whose aim is to offer Black-African artistic and cultural producers a space for dialogue, experimentation, collaboration and knowledge production. 

Anaïs Nony

Born and raised in France, Anaïs Nony grew up in the banlieues of Paris and spent most of her childhood in theater venues due to her mother working as a seamstress. She holds a BA and MA in Theater Studies and a PhD in Media Studies from the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle and the University of Minnesota Respectively. She held multiple doctoral and postdoctoral appointments at New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts, Cornell University, Florida State University, University of the Western Cape and University of Fort Hare. Her work on aesthetics and technologies is published in international journals such as Cultural Critique, Philosophy Today, Parallax, The Moving Image, Africultures among other platforms. She is currently a lecturer in Media Arts and Politics at the University College Cork, Irlande and an associate researcher in the Histoire des Arts et des Représentations institute at Université Paris Nanterre. 

Harry Wilson Kapatika

Harry Wilson Kapatika is a self-published author, poet and an African epistemic scribe currently pursuing a Masters degree in Philosophy.

Jaime Daniel Blanco

Born in Mexico City, Jaime Daniel Blanco holds a BA in Art History & Criticism from Florida State University, and an MA from Claremont Graduate University School of Management. After some experiences in auction houses, public relation firms and digital platforms in Los Angeles, his primary focus became about the intersection of artistic practices and culture. He is currently a personal assistant to an artist studio and the coordinator at an artist-run gallery in the city of New York.

Julia Guimaraes

Born in Brasil and raised in France, Julia Guimaraes grew up visiting museums and art galleries. She holds a BS in International Affairs with a minor in Business from Florida State University and hopes to pursue an MA in art history or curatorial studies in the future. Passionate about learning about cultural heritages and interested in pursuing a career in curatorial practices, she has been exploring her interest by volunteering at a local museum in South Florida and joining the team of About Time-a digital cultural platform based in South Africa.