Jane Taylor and Curlee Raven Holton: What about Africanness?

Please join the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA) for an international Zoom conversation centering on the question, “What about Africanness?” Jane Taylor and Curlee Raven Holton will take up the question from two points of view, one South African, the other North American.

Register here. Free and open to the public. The event will take place at 12pm EDT / 6pm SAST. 

Jane Taylor is known throughout the world for her performance work, both as a theorist and a practitioner. Her work in puppetry, especially her theatre collaborations with William Kentridge, has been a matter of international interest and critical acclaim for many years. Jane Taylor is the Andrew Mellon Chair of Aesthetic Theory, Centre for Humanities Research, the University of Western Cape, South Africa.

Curlee Raven Holton is an internationally recognized artist and master printmaker. He was David Driskell’s longtime artistic collaborator. For the past several years he has served as the Director and Artist in Residence at the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, University of Maryland, College Park, US. 

The panel will be moderated by Dr. yonTande Whitney V. Hunter (IDSVA PhD 2020 and David Driskell Fellow), Assistant Professor of Dance at the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, and Coordinator of the African Diasporic Dance Series at Temple University. His work focuses on Africanist perspectives in contemporary dance practices.

IDSVA is a low-residency PhD program in Visual Arts: Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Theory. As a truly nomadic institution, IDSVA has no brick-and-mortar campus, but combines long-distance courses and in-person intensive residencies. IDSVA’s aim is to change the way we think, to change the way we see the lifeworld and the way we see one another. That change—the change we are working toward as a shared communal aspiration—stands as IDSVA’s vision of the possible. 

Participating institutions: IDSVA, the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, the University of Pretoria, the University of the Witwatersrand, and the University of Western Cape.