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Prof Ruth Simbao

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Ruth Simbao is the DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa and a Professor in the Fine Art Department at Rhodes University, South Africa. She runs the Arts of Africa and Global Souths research programme, which comprises the SARChI Chair funded by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) and the National Research Foundation (NRF); PROSPA (Publishing and Research of the South: Positioning Africa) funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Art POWA network. Simbao is a core researcher in the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, which is a Rhodes collaboration with the University of Lagos (Nigeria), Moi University (Kenya), Joseph Ki-Zerbo University (Burkina Faso), and Bayreuth University (Germany).

Simbao received her PhD from the History of Art and Architecture Department at Harvard University in 2008, and was an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Postdoctoral Fellow as part of the Humanities in Africa programme in 2010. In 2002 she received a Harvard University Teaching Award as a Teaching Fellow, and was the recipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award at Rhodes University in 2009.

Her recent research interests include contemporary art with a particular focus on Africa; the geopolitics of art and society; Africa–China and the arts; ‘strategic southernness’ and global souths; theories of ‘place’, contra-flow diasporas, cosmolocalism, the power of small spaces, modest gestures, faux pas and failures; artists’ responses to xenophobia; contemporary cultural festivals and globalisation; performance theory and site-situational art, and a geopolitics of knowledge.

Recent curated exhibitions include Thania Petersen: Between land and a raised foot (2019), Bright Ackwerh: Where de choy dey? (2018), Converge (2018, curated with Brunn Kramer), Consuming Us at the Cape Town Art Fair (2016, curated with Azu Nwagbogu), SLIP: Mbali Khoza and Igshaan Adams (2014), the performance art programme BLIND SPOT at the National Arts Festival (2014), and Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg (2013) and the National Arts Festival in Makhanda (2012) (www.makingway.co.za).

Simbao has presented her work in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, China, Hong Kong, Canada, the USA, the UK, France, New Zealand, Poland, Australia, Germany and Switzerland,  and her work has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Mandarin and French. In 2016 Simbao joined the editorial consortium of the African Arts journal that is associated with UCLA and distributed by MIT Press (https://www.mitpressjournals.org/aa). She founded the annual PROSPA Publishing Workshops which have so far collaborated with Makerere University (Uganda), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana), and the University of Lagos (Nigeria) (/artsofafrica/programme/publishingworkshops/). She also founded the Residency for Artists and Writers (RAW) programme (/artsofafrica/programme/residenciesforartistsandwriters/ that to date has hosted artists and writers from South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Germany.

PUBLICATIONS

  • Simbao, Ruth. 2023. “From the dilemma of Chinese nation branding and soft power to the performativity of creative power: The TAZARA Memorial Park and artistic intervention in Zambia.” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 10(3), pp.267- 295. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00085_1
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. Curator of “Eria Nsubuga: The Baganda”. RAW Spot Gallery, 3-24 November 2022.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2023. “From the dilemma of Chinese nation branding and soft power to the performativity of creative power: The TAZARA Memorial Park and artistic intervention in Zambia.” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 10(3), pp.267- 295. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00085_1
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. ‘Abapakati: Chinese Intermediaries and Artisanal Mining on the Zambian Copperbelt’. Photo Essay: Text by Ruth Simbao, Photographs by Stary Mwaba and Ruth Simbao, Artworks by Stary Mwaba. In Leeb-du Toit, Juliette, Ruth Simbao and Ross Anthony. Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, pp 84-112.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. ‘Abapakati: Chinese Intermediaries and Artisanal Mining on the Zambian Copperbelt’. Photo Essay: Text by Ruth Simbao, Photographs by Stary Mwaba and Ruth Simbao, Artworks by Stary Mwaba. In Leeb-du Toit, Juliette, Ruth Simbao and Ross Anthony. Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, pp 84-112.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. ‘Abapakati: Chinese Intermediaries and Artisanal Mining on the Zambian Copperbelt’. Photo Essay: Text by Ruth Simbao, Photographs by Stary Mwaba and Ruth Simbao, Artworks by Stary Mwaba. In Leeb-du Toit, Juliette, Ruth Simbao and Ross Anthony. Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, pp 84-112.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2020. David Nthubu Koloane (1938-2019). African Arts, 53(2): 6-9
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2020. “Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa: Creating our art histories on the ground where we stand (La géopolitique et les arts d’Afrique: créer nos histoires de l’art sur le sol où nous sommes)” in On Art History in Africa / De l’histoire de l’art en Afrique. Kouoh, K, Nzewi, U. C., Barois De Caevel, E., & Ebbesen, M. H (eds). Switzerland: RAW Material Company; Motto Books.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. On and On group exhibition by Peju Layiwola. Curated by Peju Layiwola. Lagoon Gallery, Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos, January 2019.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. Between land and a raised foot by Thania Petersen and curated by Ruth Simbao. National Arts Festival, RAW Spot Gallery and the Monument Basement, 28 June – 7 July 2019.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. “David Kolaone fought for the right to define himself and his art”. Conversation Africa, 24 July 2019. https://theconversation.com/david-koloane-fought-for-the-right-to-definehimself-and-his-art-120687. 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019.”A rebours de la « Chine-Afrique », à pas lents, et avec de petits récits”. French version of “Pushing against ‘China-Africa’ slowly, and with small stories”, Vernaculaire & Adventice online (http://vernaculaire-adventice.com/a-rebours-de-la-chine-afrique-a-pas-lents-et-avec-depetits-recits/) translated by Myriam Dao. 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. “Pushing against ‘China-Africa’ slowly, and with small stories”. Something We Africans Got 7: 228-233.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. “超越萬隆的側向接觸：当代视觉艺术中的无畏团结与偶然的「中非」剧本 ” (“Reaching Sideways Beyond Bandung: Audacious Solidarities and Contingent “China-Africa” Scripts in Contemporary Visual Art”). 人間思想 (Renjian Thought Review) 10: pp. 14-51.
  • Simbao, Ruth; Koyo Kouoh; Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi; Suzana Sousa and Emi Koide. 2019. “Condition Report 3: Art History in Africa Debating Localization, Legitimization and New Solidarities” African Arts, 52 (2), pp. 10-17.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. “Cosmolocal Orientations: Trickster Spatialization and the Politics of Cultural Bargaining in Zambia”. Critical Interventions, pp 251-274. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19301944.2018.1532379
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. Curator. “Bright Ackwerh: Where de cho dey?” RAW Spot Gallery, Rhodes University, Makhanda, October 2018. The exhibition ran parallel to the Mellon Humanities Seminar Series hosted by the School of Journalism and Media Studies in collaboration with Fine Art, and Ackwerh presented his work at this seminar.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. Installation view: Chale Wote Festival 2018 (The 8th Chale Wote street art festival took place in James Town, Accra in Ghana from 20 -26 August 2018). Contemporaryand magazine. Available at: https://www.contemporaryand.com/magazines/chale-wote-festival-accra2018/
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. Igniting public space at the Chale Wote street art festival in Accra. The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/igniting-public-space-at-the-chale-wotestreet-art-festival-in-accra-102783
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. Capturing the Soweto Uprising: South Africa’s most iconic photograph lives on. The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/capturing-the-soweto-uprising-southafricas-most-iconic-photograph-lives-on-98318
  • Simbao, Ruth [et al.] 2018. “Zimbabwe mobilizes: ICAC’s shift from Coup de Grace to cultural coup”. African Arts, 51(2), pp.4-17. 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2017. Organized and ran the Art POWA Publishing Workshop in collaboration with Amanda Tumusiime, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, July 2017.
  • Simbao, Ruth and Hwati, Masimba. 2017. “Street Slang and Visual Improv”: Gareth Nyandoro’s Kuchekacheka (Armory Show, New York, 2017). 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2017. “A Song of Uhuru and a Difficult Dance: Anawana Haloba’s Sound Memories of TAZARA” in Chinafrika, edited by Michael MacGary. Johannesburg: metroZones and All Theory.No Practice, pp 24-27.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2017. (First Word). “Situating Africa: An Alter –geopolitics of Knowledge, or Chapungu Rises”. African Arts, 50(2), pp.1-9. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/AFAR_a_00340
  • Simbao, Ruth, William B. Miko, Eyitayo Tolulope Ijisakin, Romuald Tchibozo, Masimba Hwati, Kristin NG-Yang, Patrick Mudekereza, Aidah Nalubowa, Genevieve Hyacinthe, Lee-Roy Jason, Eman Abdou, Rehema Chachage, Amanda Tumusiime, Suzana Sousa, and Fadzai Muchemwa. 2017. “Reaching Sideways, Writing Our Ways: the Orientation of the Arts of Africa Discourse”. African Arts, 50(2), pp.10-29.http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/AFAR_a_00341
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2017. “Located on an Oblique Slanting Line: Thania Petersen’s Remnants”, Exhibition text for Remnants (Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa).
  • Simbao, Ruth and Nwagbogu, Azu. 2016. Curators of the Consuming Us exhibition and art competition at the Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town.  February 2016.
  • Simbao, Ruth.  2016. “Walking into Africa in a Chinese Way: Hua Jiming's Mindful Entry as Counterbalance”. Afrique-Asie: Arts, espaces, pratiques. Edited by Malaquais, D. and Khouri, N. p. 193-211.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. “Infecting the City: Site-situational Performance and Ambulatory Hermeneutics”. Third Text 30 (1-2), p. 1-26.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. Exhibition text for Galerie Noko, Cape Town Art Fair titled "Positioning Noko: Unearthing the 'cosmo' in the 'local'”.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. Exhibition text for the Consuming Us exhibition at the Cape Town Art Fair titled "'Africa' and consumption in a vertiginous world".
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. Essay for the Standard Bank Young Artist Award exhibition catalogue, "Performing stillness in order to move: Mohau Modisakeng's becoming". Cape Town: Whatiftheworld Gallery. [This text was first printed as an exhibition text in 2015 at Whatiftheworld Gallery and then was published in the SBYA award book in 2016].
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “What ‘Global Art’ and Current (Re)Turns Fail to See: A Modest Counter-Narrative of ‘Not-Another-Bennial’”. Image and Text 25, p. 239-263. ISSN 10201497.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. Portraits of the ‘deathlessness of cloth’: Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou’s Egungun Masquerades series. (Exhibition essay). Cape Town, SMAC Gallery.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “The Nation State (Kudzanai Chiurai)”. The Johannesburg Pavilion, Venice. Johannesburg: 133 Arts and the Joburg Art Fair. 38 Edited by Roelof van Wyk and Lee-Ann Orton. ISBN9780620656276.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Cleansing via the Senses as Eyesight Follows the Soul: Igshaan Adams’ Bismillah Performance”. Igshaan Adams. Cape Town, Blank Projects. Edited by Christine Cronje, Jonathan Garham and Hannah Lewis, p. 117-131. ISBN 9780620662598.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Blind Spots: Trickery and the ‘Opaque Stickiness’ of Seeing”. Image and Text 25, p. 5-21. ISSN 1020 1497.
  • Simbao, Ruth and Krastin, Gavin. (Interview). ‘Blind spots and mixed metaphors’. Article about performance art. Cue. http://cue.ru.ac.za/2014/07/blind-spots-and-mixed-metaphors/
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2014. SLIP: Mbali Khoza and Igshaan Adams. Alumni Gallery, Albany History Museum. 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2014. Blind Spot performance art programme consisting of four performances. Main Programme of the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. July 2014.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2014. (Book Review). “The Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life”. Social Dynamics 40(3), p. 602-604.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2014. “Cosmological Efficacy and the Politics of Sacred Place: Soli Rainmaking in Contemporary Zambia”. African Arts 47(3), Autumn 2014, p. 40-57.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2014. Blind Spot: Performance Art Programme. (Exhibition Catalogue).
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2013. "Walking The Other Side: Doung Anwar Jahangeer". Third Text 27(3), p. 315- 326.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2012. (Book Review). “Tamar Garb, Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography”. Kronos, Southern African Histories. 38, November 2012, p. 272-275. 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2012. “Making Way: Opening up the Road”. Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China. p. 1-48. Grahamstown, ViPAA. ISBN 978-0-86810-477-5.
  • Simbao, Ruth (ed). 2012. Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China. p. 1-65. Grahamstown, ViPAA. ISBN 978-0-86810-477-5.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2012. “China-Africa Relations: Research Approaches” African Arts 45(2), p. 1-7.
  • Simbao, Ruth.  2011. (Review). “Talking Art at the Festival”. Art South Africa 10(1), Spring 2011, p. 20-21.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “A Sense of Pause”. Edited by Peryer, S. Nandipha Mntambo. National Arts Festival Standard Bank Award Winner Exhibition Catalogue.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Self-Identification as Resistance: Visual Constructions of 'Africanness' and 'Blackness' during Apartheid”. Edited by Pissarra, M. Visual Century. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, p. 38-59.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “The Proximity of Distance: A Topographic Diary of Sino-African Dialectics”. JACANA: Journal of African Culture and New Approaches (1), p. 8-21. ISSN 2157-1910.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Mary Sibande”. Edited by Metsola, S., Prikko Slitari and Jari-Pekka Vanhala. Ars (11). Helsinki, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, p. 204-207. (English and Finnish). ISBN 978-951- 53-3337-7.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Infecting the City: Site-specific Geo-performance and xenophobia”. African Sociological Review.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Doing it for Comfort”. ArtThrob.

CONFERENCES AND TALKS

  • Simbao, Ruth. 2023. Invited participant in the workshop for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) book series, Primary Documents, at the Africa Institute in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. 10-15 March 2023.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2023. TAZARA Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Mpika, Zambia. Research and filming for the documentary film, Stirring Spirits: The TAZARA Memorial Park, June to July 2023.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2023. Visit with the Museum of St. Helena and the St. Helena Government Archives on St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Research project: The impact of British East India Company slavery and Chinese indentured labour on St. Helena Island, August 2023.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2023. “Audacious Art Histories as Emancipatory Knowledge: Manifesto, Theory, Praxis”. Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. December 2023.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. Workshop for the research programme, Artivism, Social Justice and Epistemic Revolution: Situating African Perspectives within the Global South, for the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence in collaboration with Bayreuth University. Rhodes University, 6-12 September 2022.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. Organiser of PostDoctoral Fellow Research Workshop. 19-20 February 2022.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. Editing and writing workshop for the Audacious Art Histories project. Assegaai Trails. 10 -17 July 2022.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. Workshop for the research programme, Artivism, Social Justice and Epistemic Revolution: Situating African Perspectives within the Global South, for the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence in collaboration with Bayreuth University. Rhodes University, 6-12 September 2022.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. "In Spite of Museums: The Unpredictable Delight of 'Taking Care' Otherwise". Invited plenary talk at the seminar, "The Future of Curating in Africa". The Center for Africa Studies, Harvard University. 23 to 23 June 2022.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. Invited Plenary. “Re-burying the Remains of Chinese Martyrs: The Rumours, Controversies and Revised Solidarities of the New TAZARA Memorial Park in Zambia”, presentation for Chinese in Africa/Africans and Lingnan University symposium series, Lingnan University (online), January 2022. Simbao was the convener of the seminar, Distances and Intimacies: African and Chinese Entanglements in Art, Heritage and Material Culture, in collaboration with the Centre for Cultural Research and Development at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2022. Invited Keynote Address: “Old Stories, Contemporary Politics, Shared Futures: Chinese Soft Power and Visual Narratives in Zambia”. The Centre for Chinese Visual Art (CCVA) at the City University of Birmingham, UK.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2021. Invited speaker. Discussion of A letter to my cousin in China, for the film screening of Henion Han’s 1999 film at the symposium Multifaceted Relations: Africa-Asia. 5 July 2021, Bayreuth University, Germany.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2021. Invited speaker. “Iron Will (铁魂): Recasting ZambianTanzanian-Chinese Comradeship (战友)”, Presentation for Socialisms for the symposium Socialist Exhibition Cultures: International Art Exhibitions in the Socialist World, 1950 – 1990 organised by Sven Spieker, University of California, Santa Barbara. 
  •  Simbao, Ruth. 2021, “Malema Mirrors Mao, Fanon Faces Dao: Afro-Asian Solidarities and Revolutionary Portraiture”. Invited plenary presenter for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) symposium Transversal Orientations.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2021. Organizer of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence panel, Creative Resistances: Africa-China and the Art of Pushing Back with the panelists Bright Ackwerh, Ruth Simbao, Victor Ndula, Myriam Dao, Jana Hönke and Ming-Cheau Lin. 16 July 2021. Bayreuth University, Germany.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2021. Paper presented, “Creative Resistances and the Art of Pushing Back” for the panel Creative Resistances: Africa-China and the Art of Pushing Back 16 July 2021. Bayreuth University, Germany.
  • Simbao, Ruth, McConnachie, B & Madiba. E. 2021. In conversation with Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja (RAW Fellow), Arts Lounge Talks, National Arts Festival. Arts of Africa & Global Souths, Rhodes University, Makhanda, 15 July 2021.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2020. Resisting Soft Power, Subverting Solidarity: Visual Narratives of Chinese Presence in Zambia. AfricAsia: Overlooked Histories of Exchange hosted by the National Museum of Asian Art and the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian, USA. 14-16 September, 2020
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2020. Plenary Talk: "Resisting Soft Power, Subverting Solidarity: Visual Narratives of Chinese Presence in Zambia". AfricAsia: Overlooked Histories of Exchange, a collaboration with the National Museum of African Art, 14-16 September 2020. (Online Symposium).
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. “‘The step begins on the ground where one stands’: Womxn artists trouble the
    ‘China-Africa’ discourse”. College Art Association conference, New York, USA. February 2019.
    Simbao, Ruth. 2019. Invited plenary address, “Hushed Resistances and Solidarities: Reframing ChinaSouth Africa in the Shadows” for the 30th Anniversary of the Film Studies School programme, "1989: Movements, Impulses, Upheavals" at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. Invited plenary address, “Africa-China in the Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa Research Programme” for the symposium linked to the opening of Dachan’s exhibition, “The Art of a Spiritual Era Brightens All Living Things,” curated by Julia Kabat and Sakhisizwe Gcina at the Zeitz MOCAA. 12 March 2019.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2019. Invited talk, “Reaching sideways as we cast new shadows: Counter-narratives and a geopolitics of proximity in the remaking of ‘African Studies’” at the Centre for Institute for Diaspora and African Studies (IDAS) at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. 
  • Simbao, Ruth and Jimoh, Ganiyu. 2019. Organised and ran the 2019 Publishing and Research of the South: Positioning Africa (PROSPA) Publishing Workshop at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. This workshop was supported by the Arts of Africa and Global Souths Research Programme and was a collaboration between Rhodes University and the Department of Creative Arts at the University of Lagos. Selected participants were Dr Abiodun Akande, University of Lagos, Dr Akinwale Onipede,
    University of Lagos, Dr Lekan Balogun, University of Lagos and University of Cape Town, Dr Kim Gurney, University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town, Dr Tosin Tume, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Dr Olusegun Titus, Obafemi Awolowo University and Kehinde Adepegba, Lagos State Polytechnic, 1-8 November 2019. 
  • Simbao, Ruth.2019. Visit to University of Lagos Department of Creatives Arts and Institute of African and Diaspora Studies. 2-9 November.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. Keynote address “Strategic Southernness, Reciprocal Epistemologies: Resituating Africa-China through the Arts”. Discussions at Wits University for the establishment of an African Centre for Chinese Studies, Wits University, Johannesburg, 19 April 2018.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. Keynote address “When ‘African Art’ meets ‘China-Africa’: Space-Time Imaginaries and a Pursuit for New Scripts” presented at the International Bandung School Workshop: Thinking the Third World Today: Art, Translation and the Media, organised by the Institute for Asian, African and Latin American Culture and Art, Nanshan Campus of the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China, 1-2 June 2018.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. “Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa: A Walk with Ngugi wa Thiongo” and Moderator of the panel, “Localizing Art Histories”. Condition Report 3 symposium on Art History in Africa. RAW Material Company, Dakar, Senegal, 20 -22 September 2018. 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. “Unlearning, Unscripting: Visualizing the Future of ‘China-Africa’”. Invited Guest Speaker at the Center for African Studies at Peking University in Beijing, China. 6 June 2018. Sponsored by the Center for African Studies; the School of Foreign Languages and the Institute of Area Studies at Peking University
  • Simbao, Ruth (Chair). 2018. In Conversation with Bernard Akoi-Jackson. Arts Lounge Talks, National Arts Festival. Arts of Africa and Global Souths, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 4 July 2018.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2018. Organiser and Chair. PROSPA Publishing Workshop, Arts of Africa and Global Souths research programme. Arts Lounge, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 19 -25 November 2018. Participants: Dorothy Akpene Amenuke, ka?rî'ka?
    chä seid'ou, Edwin Kwesi Bodjawah, George Ampratwum, Kwaku Boafo Kissiedu. Ibrahim Mohammed Mahama, Adepeju Layiwola, Ruth Simbao and Stephen Folaranmi.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2017. Chair of the panel: “Between Place and a Raised Foot: The Pace, Protest and way of Ambulatory Art”, and presented the paper, “Walking: Pace, Protest and Artistic Practice”. Arts Council of the African Studies Association Triennial Conference at the University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana. August 2017.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2017. Keynote speaker at the symposium, “Referencing China and East Asia in Southern African Visual Culture”, Goethe Institute, Johannesburg, April 2017. Paper: “The Direction of Place and the Orientation of Discourse: Portrayals of ‘China’ that Reach Sideways”. (This symposium ran parallel to the “ChinAfrika:” symposium).
  • Simbao, Ruth.  2017. “A Song of Uhuru and a Difficult Dance: Anawana Haloba’s Sound Memories of TAZARA” presented at the “ChinAfrika” symposium, Goethe Institute, Johannesburg 2017. (This symposium ran parallel to the “Referencing China and East Asia in Southern African Visual Culture” symposium).
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2017. Invited plenary talk: “Chapungu Rising: The Centre of Gravity and an Altergeopolitics of Knowledge” at the International Conference of African Cultures (ICAC) at the National Gallery of Harare, Zimbabwe, September 2017. 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. "From socialist camaraderie to neo-liberal investment: Zambia-China relations in the works of Anawana Haloba and Stary Mwaba”. Invited plenary speaker: Talks programme at the Cape Town Art Fair.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. “A Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Value of Discomfort”. A Luta Continua: Doing it for Daddy. Department of Fine Arts, Rhodes University, Grahamstown.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. Organizer and Chair of the panel. “Decolonizing the Arts”, for the ThinkFest programme of the National Arts Festival. Other speakers: Bullen, P., Kakande, A., Nalubowa, A.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. “Text which performs, Exploring the African Continent through the Arts”. UNISA, Pretoria.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2016. "A trickster named Audacity: Place as a wandering signifier”. Plenary paper at the international conference: Signifying Spaces: Theory, Method, Textual Practice. Maria Curie Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland, 25-29 September 2016.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “‘Africanisation’ versus Afrophobia: Diversity as Vitality in South African Art Institutions”. Gallerie Noko, Port Elizabeth. Invited local plenary talk.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. The European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) Leadership Symposium, “Dominance, Diversity, Disruption”. Cape Town, December 2015. Panel discussion on tertiary arts education in Africa with Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa and Maude Dikobe. Chaired by Mike van Graan.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Learning Sideways: Struggles of ‘Africanisation’ in the Eurocentric Discipline of Art History”. African Arts Institute Conference on African Tertiary Arts Education, Cape Town, December 2015.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Learning Sideways: Struggles of ‘Africanisation’ in the Eurocentric Discipline of Art History”. Rhodes University Teaching and Learning Showcase. November 2015.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Walking into Africa in a Chinese Way: Mindful Entry as Counterbalance”. Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) project Espaces de la culture chinoise en Afrique in association with the Congress of the Asia and Pacific Network/Asian Studies association, Paris, France, September 2015. (Invited international plenary talk). 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2014. “Blanks, Failures and Ways of Not Seeing: Athi-Patra Ruga and Anthea Moys”. Blind Spots and Ways of Not Seeing, Rhodes University Fine Art Department and the Visual and Performing Arts of Africa research team symposium, October 2014.
  • Simbao, Ruth.  2014. “Contemporary Art and China-Africa Relations”. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) triennial conference at the Brooklyn Museum of Fine Art, New York, March 2014. [Simbao also co-chaired the panel with Gemma Rodrigues].
  • Simbao, Ruth.  2014. “Site-Situational Performance in Cosmolocal Places: Athi-Patra Ruga and Anthea Moys”. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) triennial conference at the Brooklyn Museum of Fine Art, New York, March 2014. [Simbao co-chaired the panel with Gemma Rodrigues, and organised the street performance ‘The Way the Crow Flies’ by Doung Anwar Jahangeer].
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2012. “Artists and New Mobilities: Re-Visualising the China-Africa Debate”. Presented at the Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Conference. Monash University, Johannesburg, September 2012. 
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2012. Curated Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China. Group exhibition curated for the main programme of the National Arts Festival. Venues: Albany Museum, Fort Selwyn and the Provost, and performance programme (Athi-Patra Ruga, Doung Jahangeer, Rando Randolph Hartzenberg and Gerald Machona). See www.makingway.co.za. 28 June - 8 July.
  • Simbao, Ruth.  2011. “The Cosmolocalism of an Elusive Continent: Small Change in ‘Small’ Places”. International CIHA/SAVAH symposium, Wits University, Johannesburg, January 2011.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Everyone has a Relative Named Local”. Presented at the names we give - events in art, culture and society. Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA), University of Cape Town, 13 -15 May 2011.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. ”Making Way: Contemporary Afropolitan and Sinopolitan Engagements”. Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ), Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, December 2011.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011.  Organised and chaired panel: “The Proximity of Distance: (South) Africa in relation to (Global) Africa“. Arts Council of African Studies Association (ACASA) Triennial Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, 23 - 26 March 2011.
  • Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Ways of Distancing: Afrophilia/Afrophobia/Afro-Indifference”. Presented at the Arts Council of African Studies Association (ACASA) Triennial Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, 23 - 26 March 2011. 

Last Modified: Thu, 28 Nov 2024 13:13:40 SAST