African Digital Heritage Foundation

After 4 months, we finally get to commune and converse with you all again! At 6 pm EAT today, you can join us for our latest Public History Talk with our outgoing Historians in Residence Banji Chona and Akanyijuka Evans. See you in a few hours!

The countdown to our Public History Talk this Thursday the 29th of August, is on!⌛ In our time together, we will discuss working within communities of practice that strengthen relationships and steadfastly ground themselves in the wisdom of culture. Our residents will share more on their individual ‘process of making’, what they will take with them as they continue on, and their forecast for the future for them and their projects. We look forward to you joining us! Click to register and find out more: https://lnkd.in/dVSQj5av

We are wrapping up our Historians in Residence Program! The final group session of the program was led by ADH Digitisation Specialist, Malkia Okech. The conversation on digitisation tools and techniques was driven by the inherent link between memory work and cultural heritage. “Technology encompasses a lot... including indigenous knowledge systems.” In the session, Malkia also emphasised the importance of our interactions with the digital world from a decolonial and liberatory stance. Click the link to join us and our Residents Banji Chona and Akanyijuka Evans on 29th of August for more residency insights: https://lnkd.in/dVSQj5av

We are excited to have the first cohort of our Historians in Residence program, Banji Chona and Akanyijuka Evans, join us on 29th August, for this month's Public History Talk. In this session, both Banji and Akanyijuka take us through their work, sharing reflections on lessons they've learnt, and the importance of having community while navigating the good, bad and ugly of idea execution. Register to join the conversation here: https://lnkd.in/dVSQj5av

Ubuntu: “I am because you are.” This philosophy captures the spirit within which we seek to build and learn alongside our communities of practice. As we navigate the cultural heritage space, we are consistently reminded of the need to have our work challenge the concept of individualism and remain steeped in the wisdom of our histories- in this case, the importance of community. Register today to join us on the 29th for a discussion on mutual creation, learning, and building in the cultural heritage space.

Thank you for your continued support of the People’s Archive and its efforts to commemorate and preserve Kenya’s historic protests. The archive stands as a tribute to those who are fighting during this critical time and to those who continue their struggle for a more just and equitable country. We have drop-off points across Kenya and the diaspora for physical material. These locations will NOT be publicly disclosed to ensure everyone's safety. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us: Email: [email protected] Call/Text/ Whatsapp: +254716300033

We took a brief pause on our Public History Talks to focus on the People's Archive. In August we will resume the bi-monthly conversation to explore ‘Community Learning in Culture and Heritage’ on the 29th of August. The conversation also comes at the tail end of our Historians in Residence program which is closing at the end of this month. Look out for our guest announcement and what you can expect from this edition of our Public History Talks.

In light of the current citizen movement and in solidarity with the people of Kenya, we temporarily paused the Culture Catch Up Public History Talks. Instead, we are releasing a special edition newsletter titled ‘Culture in Conflict’ to highlight the necessity of preserving historical moments and the collective memories that characterise them. The newsletter will hit your inbox first thing tomorrow, the 25th of July. 📫 If you haven’t signed up for our mailing list, find the sign-up form in the link on our bio OR on our website at https://lnkd.in/dAnjhm2k 

Do you have items related to the ongoing historic protests? We are building a Citizen Archive to document and preserve this pivotal moment in Kenyan history for future generations. Your contributions can make a difference! We are seeking: T-shirts, Flags, Posters, Placards, Images Videos, Audio recordings and more from across Kenya and the diaspora. To add to the archive visit: https://peoplesarchive.ke/, email [email protected] or Whatsapp +254 716 300033 Join us in preserving our collective memory and ensuring that the voices of today resonate for years to come.

As part of the team continues to solidify the “The People’s Archive” and participate in other solidarity activities, the rest of the team was in Frankfurt participating in “The Cosmologies of Objects” Think tank and exhibition. The think tank that happened on the 3rd to the 6th of July, tackled the cosmologies of objects and focused on three main topics: materiality, spirituality and gendered objects. 🟣 Objects are archives. Memories and stories are stored in the object’s materiality and shape, in their traces of use and functions, in their sound and smell. How can we retrieve this knowledge? In what contexts of meaning were and are they? What cosmologies and knowledge systems are hidden within them? What can we learn from them? And how can we make them speak? 🟠 The exhibition The Cosmologies of Objects showed works by Élise Fitte-Duval, Karwitha Kirimi and Adam Yawe. The three artists are part of the residency programme running since 2021 by the artistic research project TALKING OBJECTS LAB. A project led by a Senegalese-Kenyan-German curatorial team interested in decolonial approaches to knowledge production. The artists examine objects from the collection of the Musée Théodore Monod, Dakar, attempt to make the invisible visible and thus establish connections between the past and the present. Élise Fitte-Duval’s photographs, for example, reflect on the role of women in West African societies based on artefacts from the Manding Kingdom (now Mali). Adam Yawe’s 3D animations build associative bridges between West African objects and Nairobi’s urban culture. Finally, Karwitha Kirimi creates an expansive soundscape focussing on loss, grief and healing. ⚫ The three artists’ approach to specific objects from the Musée Théodore Monod collection testifies to polyperspectivity and a wealth of possible approaches and interpretations. The Cosmologies of Objects unites a variety of aesthetics and shows ways in which objects can be made to speak in order to unravel what is archived by them. The Cosmologies of Objects united a variety of aesthetics & showed that objects can 'speak' to help unravel archives. These explorations as well as the discussions from the think tank will help us advance the curation of the Talking Objects Archive. The evolving archive is strongly informed by the accompanying ongoing artistic research project TALKING OBJECTS LAB and is interested in poly-perceptivity and plural knowledge systems.