MARIO PISSARRA

the Imagined New (or what happens when History is a Catastrophe?) is the name of a collaborative project undertaken by the Ruth J. Simmons Centre for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ) at Brown University, and the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD) at the University of Johannesburg. The project is described by Leora Farber, director of VIAD, as “an interdisciplinary platform for critical exchange and research around African and African Diasporic art practices, as they relate to questions of history, performance, archives and the alternative imagination[s] of the radical Black Tradition.” (11). The project was inaugurated in May 2019 with a three-day workshop in Johannesburg, titled “Working through Alternative Archives: Art, History, Africa and the African Diaspora”. Farber describes the workshop as having “comprised a range of research and curatorial platforms, including gatherings, online programmes, panel discussions, public conversations, and publications.” (12).

Anthony Bogues, director of CSSJ, provides further clarity about the project’s focus when he states that, “At the heart of the Imagined New project are conversations about the lived presence of the past in South Africa, Ethiopia, the Caribbean, the USA and Brazil.” (17). Participants, Farber tells us, comprised invited “scholars, curators and artists from South Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Brazil, the USA and the Caribbean, each of whom are recognized for their work and preoccupations with creative and curatorial practices related to legacies of slavery, colonialism and apartheid – as well as alternative approaches to history-making, the ‘archive’ and the political work of the radical Black imagination.” (12)

Of the book, Bogues states that “This volume represents in written form the conversations and dialogues of the first the Imagined New Workshop”. (19). ‘Represents’ appears to be an operative function, since the publication is not a record in the sense that conventional proceedings of academic gatherings assemble texts (most if not necessarily all) in order of their occurrence, which is not quite what we have here.^{[1] This observation is deduced from Farber’s description of proceedings.} Rather, the book is “drawn from the exceptionally rich engagements”, (8) intended to act as, in Bogues’ words, “but a catalyst for further conversations and dialogue about history, aesthetics, politics and Black life today.” (19).

Intentions aside, it is clear that that the publication is a rich anthology of case studies and conversations, and a welcome addition to iwalewabooks’ burgeoning catalogue of indispensable titles. Most of the texts are national in scope, with a few transnational studies. Some centre the work of individual artists or institutions. Prevalent themes include curatorial and aesthetic strategies to address the historical erasure of indigenous peoples and to counter the historical marginalization of oppressed groups. Collectively, the volume advances the cause of a decolonial art history by bringing into comparative experience struggles to overcome legacies of slavery, colonialism and apartheid through the agencies of art, curating and writing.

In the one text that does not focus on the visual arts, Surafel Wondimu Abebe reinserts the historical presence and (sometimes fraught) experiences of women performers in Ethiopia within the context of a “state-sanctioned forgetting of the past” (37), a problem compounded by institutionalized patriarchy. Claudia Regina Alves da Rocha discusses efforts by Black museum staff to foreground Black artists in a historically white dominated museum collection in Brazil. Several contributors question the institutional forms used to memorialise histories. Geri Augusto, in thinking about sacral arts poses “The dilemma … in how one might bring in subjugated or marginalized knowledge [practices and creative expressions. Do you bring them in, or do you create other spaces for them?” (151). Francoise Verges reflects on a project to establish a museum in Reunion, which aimed to reposition the identity of the island within the Indian-Oceanic world rather than as a satellite of France. The museum project was regrettably terminated by conservatives following their election in 2010. The challenge, Verges notes, was “How do we tell a story when so many chapters are missing?” Consequently, she proposed that “we imagine a museum without objects.” (author’s emphasis, 85). This idea presumably resonates with Molemo Moiloa, who expresses her discomfort with the idea of value being invested in objects, arguing that value is created relationally and discursively.^{[2]Similar views expressed by Dennis (44).} Moiloa elaborates on this approach by discussing a project that “sought to imagine what museums might become, reimagining them in a Black space.” (133)^{[3]It is unclear if the “in” is intentional, or should be “as”. If the former, the implication is that of a museum situated within a “Black world”, which perhaps needs some elaboration; if the former, it implies an emphasis on transforming a historically white space.}

This range of approaches to how one remembers and re-presents those persons, communities and practices historically excluded demonstrates a deep commitment to imagining and enacting the new.

Texts concerning curatorial approaches are complemented with those on individual artists (from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Haiti). All these studies situate the artists within legacies of racism and eurocentrism. Many of them, as Bogues notes, are engaging us “about the tradition they are working on.” (226) There is an interview with Nolan Oswald Dennis, conducted by Riason Naidoo, where the artist explains that his work is concerned with “trying to present a kind of strategy for imagining, informed deeply by African traditions and African anti-colonial traditions.” (45). How the artist accomplishes this is perhaps less clear.

Thabang Monoa’s focused and insightful essay is an empathetic interpretation of how printmaker Ben Ngobeni mediates the trauma and taboo of his father’s suicide to restore dignity. 

Monoa provides some lucid, interpretative text, as when he concludes “[Ngobeni] reorientates the perception of a racially abused, weakened and dehumanised Black human into one capacitated with the power to assert their autonomy.” (219).

Zamansele Nsele’s essay on an afro-futuristic video by Gerald Machona that addresses Afrophobia positions the work within a history of anti-Blackness within South Africa. She argues forcefully that “non-racialist and post-racialist nation building discourse has come to impede our understanding on the particularity of anti-Blackness which remains foundational and ubiquitous in undermining black citizenship.” (188). Further that, “state-sanctioned rainbow-nationalist politics of inclusion carries Afrophobia with it, morphing from the old swart gevaar.” (190). Seeking to explain violence against Africans from other nation-states, Nsele argues that “The imagined ‘other’ of the new South Africa project has remained the Black figure as a foreigner and outsider.” (199) ^{[4]See also Nsele’s comments on “an Afrophobia that is regularly conflated with xenophobia.” She remarks that,  “What this conflation avoids is a courageous confrontation with the germ of anti-blackness that is a key ingredient to the dominant experiences of xenophobia in South Africa.” (195).}

Erica Moiah James centres a discussion on Edouard Duval-Carrié within a broader consideration of contemporary aesthetic approaches to representing history in Caribbean art, highlighting artists’ departures from imperial/colonial idioms of history painting, portraiture and botanical illustrations. Her discussion of how Joscelyn Gardiner ‘portrays’ individual slaves who left no visual records and little detail of their lives recalls Verges’ challenges to memorializing erased histories.

Together, these varied contributions make for a publication that I expect to return to as a resource for my own work as an art historian, and which I imagine to be an invaluable contribution to curatorial and museum studies.

The book’s many successes aside, I did struggle with certain editorial decisions, which I couldn’t help feeling may not have been adequately considered. I found myself wondering about the editorial model used – how a team of four editors (excluding proof readers and copy editors) distributed responsibilities amongst themselves. And whether, notwithstanding my earlier remarks concerning distinctions between proceedings and a book, the publication does not, in places, display signs of having been compiled rather than edited. This perception is hard to avoid in the chapter titled “Museums for Whom? Museums for What?” which features short texts from a panel discussion convened by Khwezi Gule. The chapter includes a transcript of a talk by da Rocha, despite her having elaborated on the same set of ideas in a full essay. I imagine this may have presented a quandary – how to exclude one participant when presenting the proceedings of a particular discussion? However, since the book contains a selective sampling of proceedings, which the editors see as “a curated offering” (15), there is thus no need to ‘reconstitute’ a session, especially when the workshop format comprised several themed sessions with none – other than the Museums panel – being delineated.^{[5]According to Farber, “Each session began with a short framing presentation or rather, provocation.” (14). Personally, I would have enjoyed seeing an outline of the full proceedings.}

The impression of a compiled anthology re-emerges when looking at how editors have handled the transcription of spoken texts into written form. One approach, which we see with Agusto’s contribution, is when a spoken text is rewritten for purposes of the publication. Another approach is to retain the conversational tone as much as possible, editing the transcript to suit its new purpose as a published text.^{[6] Naidoo’s interview with Dennis reads smoothly, suggesting that whether it was conducted in person or through correspondence bumps have been ironed out with a view to its final form as a published text.} Alternately, one can acknowledge that, in the interests of maintaining a record of an event, texts are presented with minimal editorial interference. The difficulty with presenting lightly edited transcripts is that a speaker may have made a point that appeared clear when presented in person but which becomes ambiguous when read. With no option to request clarity, readers are left to speculate. Consider the following passage from Gule:

“So, if you look again at museums of historical nature including Constitution Hill, the Robben Island Museums (sic) and other such museums that are part of this project of imagining a post-apartheid South Africa, it is interesting to see that these state-owned art galleries and museums don’t seem to actively form part of that imaginary.” (126).

Which are “these state-owned art galleries and museums” that Gule refers to? Neither Constitution Hill nor Robben Island Museum are art galleries. Alternately, if reference is being made to institutions that he refers to earlier in the text, namely The Johannesburg Art Gallery, Hector Pietersen Museum and Kliptown Museum, the last two are most certainly part of that same post-apartheid constellation of new museums that includes Constitutional Hill and the Robben Island Museum. It is therefore unclear what point he is making and how his examples support his argument.^{[7] Similarly, one requires editorial intervention when Gule’s transcript refers to a facility “mentioned earlier” (125), with no clearly identifiable prior reference in the text.}

A further challenge in re-presenting talks as texts concerns the use of images that accompanied the original presentation. Editorial choices include the use of these images as illustrations and/or inserting an adequate description. If nothing is done to adapt the text (nor to include illustrations) then one will encounter phrases such as these from Thomas Lax: “In seeing this image of somebody who is photographing themselves for the internet…”; and, “who you see animating physically with her breath” (129). I imagine most art historians would like to see illustrations of images discussed, not least because readings often vary, as will become evident below.

Signs of a light editorial hand are not confined to transcriptions, surfacing intermittently throughout the book. As an editor, I am sympathetic to the resilience of errors that make it to print. It would be pedantic to place emphasis on such details, other than to acknowledge them when necessary to support points being made.

Where I do think editors need to step up is when readability is compromised by a writer’s cluttering of sentences with a cluster of ideas, more especially when they use language that is only comprehensible by fellow academics.

In such cases, my tendency is to ring the editor’s bell. In particular, I found sections of texts by James and Nsele hard to follow, leaving me wondering if I am not educated or smart enough, or whether what I tripped over should not have been tackled by the editors.

James’ text is based on two earlier articles, and is presented in two parts. The first explores the work of Caribbean modernists, situating their aesthetics in critical dialogue with imperial/colonial idioms or genres. The second part foregrounds the work of Duval-Carrié, who is central to the full text. My difficulties were largely in the second section, finding it necessary to revisit and re-read sentences and phrases before reaching a degree of confidence that, perhaps, I had understood the point or argument being made. Sometimes I wished the author had done more to simplify a sentence.^{[8]For example, James states that “[Artists are] amplifying the economic systems authorship of Haitian and Caribbean histories” (179)? Is “authorship” the best word to describe the origins/ design/ development/ construction of economic systems? Is “amplifying” authorship about making it louder (or bigger) or is the intent to make ‘authorship’ visible?} I am still uncertain about what James means by “representational refinement” (173), since “representation” has meanings other than depiction or signification, and when “refinement” is being foregrounded as a concept in its own right.^{[9]James remarks that “representational refinement fed the process of historical erasure” (173). Is her point that visual representations of (the assimilationist practice of) refinement contributed towards an official record that effectively erased the historical presence of Black subjects? Or have I missed the point entirely?  And when she states that “representational processes that configure history receive the proverbial backlight through which Duval-Carrié asks us to look again.” (174), does she mean that visual representations inform or influence the historical record (through depicting ‘history’); and that in response, the decolonial artist subsequently upends these ‘facts’, enabling or provoking us to engage critically with that record?  When James states that “historical images and multiple modes of representation are gathered in tight association to unveil their pose of indexicality as truth.” (174), does this mean that visual representations commonly accepted as the truth are exposed by the artist as false or misleading constructions?} I also pondered the intentions and implications of the statement, “One is continually forced to look for history by drawing on what is not present in the frame in relief of the archive in ways that mark the subjective and deeply interested nature of these images.” (my emphasis, 174).^{[10]I suspect this is an argument to complement readings of images by resorting to archives in order to fill in gaps. Within the context of the Imagined New. I wonder about the implications of this interpretation, if it is correct. If artworks are contrasted with archives, what does this mean for a project that appears to favour a conception of ‘alternative archives’ that includes the use of artworks as archival sources?}

In one instance it was the punctuation that threw me. James uses the “Italian Caribbean” artist Agostino Brunias to provide context for Duval-Carrié.^{[11]This hybrid positioning of Brunias is motivated by James as a “necessary troubling” that is responsive to the fractured identities of those working and living for extended periods in the region, native born or otherwise.” (158)} Brunias’ painting Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants in a Landscape (ca. 1770-1796) is illustrated and discussed in both parts of the text. The author uses the work to elaborate on the assimilationist concept of refinement which she defines as “both an economic process and social phenomenon rooted in histories of violence” (155). James observes that, “In this painting one witnesses a movement from ontological blackness to whiteness.” (158). Later, she comments, “If one looks closely … one can see that three generations of women and children are pictured in the frame.” (173) This sentence is followed with, “Though active agents in the creation of the persons that comprise the scene – white plantation owners or plantation officers – work gangs of enslaved Africans are absented.” (173) The use of the em dash implies that plantation owners or plantation officers are the persons that “comprise” the scene, which is clearly not so. There is also a distinction, emphasized by the em dash, between the plantation owners/ officers and the enslaved. It becomes unclear what is meant by the verb comprise, who “comprises the scene” and who is “absented”. There are distinctions being made here, but they are not clear.

Editorial responsibilities do not end with ensuring the coherence of language. They include taking decisions about the use of images.  Indeed, the two responsibilities are complementary. James provides detailed readings of three works by Duval-Carrié. It is extremely difficult, actually impossible, to see the level of detail described in these works.^{[12]This comment also applies to a fourth work by Duval-Carrié that is illustrated but not discussed in the same detail.} As a publisher, I am sympathetic to challenges in sourcing images, both in terms of quality and costs. I’m also cognizant of well-resourced academic publishers who pinch their purses when it comes to illustrations, to the detriment of their publications. But neither of these logics appear to be relevant here. Reproductions of Duval-Carrié’s works are sourced from the artist, with the author having built a relationship with the artist over more than two decades, so we can safely assume that details could have been supplied. (155) And the book shows no signs of intent to restrict the use of images. The Imagined New includes 62 illustrations, mostly in colour, including seven double-spreads. It is striking that 21 full pages of colour illustrations are allocated for a single text (excluding six accompanying pages populated only by captions). Of these, over eight pages are allocated for a single work. This lavish treatment is given to Nolan Oswald Dennis (whose work also appears on the front and back cover), despite the fact that most of the works reproduced are not even mentioned in the interview with Naidoo and will mean very little to readers not already familiar with Deniss’ work.^{[13]The double spreads of Dennis’ works are also poorly considered, as one misses details because of the glue binding.} This is an editorial decision that confers hypervisibility on one text (and its featured artist) at the expense of other texts that warranted a more generous approach to illustrations.^{[14]James’ detailed discussion of two paintings by Jean-Baptiste Jean (160-64) would have been well served by illustrations (160-64), as would Verges’ discussion of public art works in Paris, what she terms “the colonial triangle” (79-80).} With Dennis a research associate of VIAD, one can’t help wondering whether the government funded subsidy system is not an incentive for publishing images of an artist’s work as “research”. It is also an editorial decision that reproduces existing power relations between artists represented by leading private galleries and those not (Ngobeni, for example); one wonders about the meaning of “alternative” here.

The argument for a more judicious selection of images is not simply an aesthetic or illustrative concern. It goes to the heart of how images can be read as texts, an important consideration if they are to be treated as archival sources.

For an example of how an image can generate different, even competing interpretations, I will draw attention to James’ readings of two prints by William Blake, titled A Female Negro Slave with a Weight Chained to her Ankle (1773) and Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave (1773). These engravings are based on drawings by John Gabriel Stedman, which have since been lost. Stedman was a Dutch soldier stationed in Surinam who was active in apprehending fugitive slaves. He is best remembered for his book Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition, against the revolted Negroes of Surinam […] from the year 1772, to 1777, which was published in London in 1796. The book is based on personal diaries that reflect a complex and contradictory relationship to slavery.^{[15]James does not provide any detail on Stedman. What is presented here is drawn from his entry on Wikipedia, which includes links to numerous published sources.} Blake was commissioned by the publisher to produce ten of the illustrations. James instrumentalizes Blake’s illustrations in order to distinguish between imperialist conventions of visual representation and postmodern strategies applied by contemporary Caribbean artists. She describes the two prints as “clearly violent, sexual and pornographic”. James supports her argument by likening Blake’s compositions to the conventions of representation used by explorer-artists. She remarks that, “The redeployment of the compositional codes used in botanical illustrations to represent the violated and sexually available bodies of enslaved Africans from the point of view of the European slavers embeds an aesthetic of commodification.” (168) James refers specifically to the conventions of a low horizon line, which is frequently used to minimize detail, and to the centering of the body, which “invites consumptive study”. “The compositional form”, James argues, “does not engender empathy.” (168)

Aside from the observation that can be made that the low horizon and centering of a near naked Black body are features of one of the contemporary examples discussed favorably by James,^{[16]It can be observed that these same formal qualities (low horizon line, centering of a semi-naked Black figure) occur in a painting by Haitian artist Philome Obin, depicting the martyrdom of resistance leader Charlemagne Péralte (158-160).} I wonder to what extent the author — who later in her text appears to be advocating recourse to (formal?) archives to supplement information not gleaned from the image — took adequate cognizance of historical context in discussing Blake’s images. And whether, given her declared interest in “fractured identities” – which she raises in relation to Brunias — she has any interest in differentiating between the three individuals responsible for the production of Blake’s images. Does it matter that Joseph Johnson, publisher of Stedman’s narratives, was an early abolitionist? Is there any significance in that Johnson appears to have positioned Stedman’s book — regardless of the author’s own twisted perspectives on slavery — for the abolitionist cause? What should we make of Johnson’s decision to commission Blake, a fellow abolitionist? The lack of differentiation between the roles and interests of Stedman, Johnson and Blake, and lack of consideration to how the images circulated to which audiences suggests a conflation of the three co-producers of the image, rendering them uniformly as one-dimensional signifiers of a homogenous racial capitalism.

I admit to being perplexed by James’ denunciation of Blake’s images as violent, sexual and pornographic. Violence is an explicit characteristic of the events represented. Sex, in the case of the Flagellation image, is a part of the narrative. These are themes that the artist would have had to consider in his treatment of the theme. But how are the images pornographic, other than that the women are semi-naked and that the figure is female and the artist male, compounded by the racial identities of the two?

In contrast to James’ reading — and with focus on the image of flagellation as this presumably is the most ‘offensive’ of the two — I would argue that Blake’s centering of a semi-naked Black female slave, her thighs covered in rags, serves precisely to foreground the horror of the event, aided by the caption that provides further detail (such as her being aged 18 and punished for refusing to have sex with an overseer). The image of flagellation includes a tree with an overhanging bough, to which her arms are tied. The “Samboe slave” is not depicted in harmony with the tree, nor is nature used to evoke any sense of sublime ecstasy, as one may expect from an artist associated with the tropes of Romanticism.^{[17]Perhaps one can read the budding shoots branches as a sign of a life in the hereafter.} 

Rather than depicting the abused woman as passive, the asymmetry of her body introduces movement that suggests a desperate attempt on her part to survive. She has agency, even when bound. 

Contrary to the author’s assertion that the low horizon is used to minimize information, the dramatic qualities of the image are accentuated by contrast of the slave’s body with the dwarfed male figures in the background. These figures comprise two fully dressed overseers, one with a sword on his waist, and two naked (or barely clad) male slaves. The slaves are wielding whips that one associates with the punishment. Both overseers are shown gesturing and at a first glance it appears as if they are pointing towards the woman. A closer look renders the image ambiguous – there is a small boat being rowed across what resembles a bay, possibly indicating fleeing slaves. Once one picks up this detail, the depiction of the overseers makes more sense, as it seems that their gesticulation is towards the boat and its occupants. Thus, the image serves to depict not only the horrific consequences of disobeying the depraved will of slavers but also introduces subtexts suggestive of both resistance and collusion by fellow slaves.^{[18]The image also includes what looks a thatched house in the distance; yet another detail that contributes to the image being ripe with signs that can be used to interpret it.}

Earlier, James introduces the idea of ‘abstract realism’ to refer to botanical illustrations that lack specificity (173).^{[19]A description of drawings by George Robertson are used to support this argument, but instead of using Robertson’s mages to illustrate the argument we have an engraving by another artist (Thomas Vivares), which is based on a drawing by Robertson (173-175). This is a strange decision, since it treats the engraving as a mechanical reproduction of a drawing, rather than as an image based upon another, translated into a different media, which surely introduces aesthetic qualities distinct from its source.} While I am not entirely convinced of the value of this construct, it does offer a way of reading Blake’s image. The notion of realism is applicable to the recording of a specific atrocity, and its context. The caption provides further detail, such as the victim’s ethnic identity and tender age and the circumstances leading to the event. A degree of abstraction occurs in the generalized qualities of her physical form, the absence of individualized features, and the lack of voyeuristic detail (that one would associate with pornography). These characteristics enable the “Samboe slave” to stand for all violated Black females, more especially enslaved women.

The irony concerning James’ problematic instrumentalization of Blake’s images for purposes of her argument is that there is an abundance of images that can be used to support her point, namely that “representational tropes used to identify products or goods that could be transferred and grown for extraction and refinement as commodity were simultaneously deployed to represent that other perceived commodity – Africans.” (168). Most major colonies produced explorer-artists whose images can be used to support the argument that the imperialist tradition of ‘scientifically’ capturing likeness in botanical drawings and paintings frequently extended to the depiction of indigenous, enslaved and oppressed persons, thereby demonstrating their equivalence as commodities for a capitalist (dis)order.

My point here is not that my reading of Blake’s images is correct and that James is wrong. Readers and viewers approach images informed by their own positionalities and experience. In this case, I was able to offer a contrary reading because the editors saw fit to include illustrations of the works discussed.

Images are also not a premium in texts by Nsele and Monoa, which are modestly illustrated, but they are less of a worry because the descriptions of artworks are relatively easy to follow. That said, I have to admit to finding some of Nsele’s arguments hard work. This was partially because the theoretical constructs on which she builds her essay – Restorative Nostalgia and Nachtraglichkeit – are new to me. The former was particularly difficult to grasp, since it forced me to rethink how I understand the concept of nostalgia, which I have always associated with the past. Nsele draws on the work of Boym (The Future of Nostalgia), who “distinguishes between retrospective and prospective nostalgia.” (191) Nsele states that her concern is with the prospective type, which Boym dubs “restorative nostalgia”. According to Nsele, “Restorative nostalgia refers to a collective nostalgia for the future.” (my emphasis, 191) A little later, “The prospective type… creates collective fantasies about the future” (my emphasis, 191).

Finding it difficult to follow Nsele’s use of “restorative nostalgia”, I opted to research the idea on Google. There I came to grasp the concept as referring to when an imagined future is based on an idealized or misrepresented vision of the past. If this is a correct understanding, then it strikes me as a useful concept, not least for re/thinking decolonization (and thus highly relevant for the Imagined New project). Nsele uses the notion of restorative nostalgia to critique what she terms “rainbow nationalism”. She argues that “Restorative nostalgia is a collective and state-led type of nostalgia that coheres the national meta-narrative of rainbow nationalism.” (191) Further, that it is “the rhetoric of rainbow nationalism that dubs South Africa as ‘a miracle nation’.” (192)

Nsele writes, “Through rainbow nationalism [as] a form of restorative nostalgia, nationalistic memories of a post-racial future are evoked as a sanitizer that cleanses both the past and the present.” (my emphasis, 192) Such statements lose me, since I can’t get my head around “memories of a post-racial future” particularly, if I follow correctly, restorative nostalgia requires reference to a historical precedent, presumably in this case dating back to colonialism and apartheid.^{[20]If, alternately, “memories of a post-racial future” refers to a history of non-racial struggle, then that might be easier to begin to grasp, although there is nothing to tell me that reference here is being made to that brief period embodied in mass movements such as the United Democratic Front.}

I have even more difficulty trying to reconcile the idea of a ‘post-racial’ past (if this is what is intimated) with Nsele’s central argument, namely that it is South Africa’s history of anti-blackness that has mutated into “rainbow nationalism’. She writes, “Today, South Africa’s postapartheid affective network of hopes, desires and its nostalgia for the future perpetuate a self-image that is dichotomous to the rest of the African continent.” (my emphasis, 189).^{[21]Nsele uses the underscore to question the notion of apartheid having been superceded.} And again, “If we start to understand rainbow nationalism as a restorative nostalgia that attempts to rebuild a lost home, or as a homecoming, it then follows that in order to access it and enjoy a modern democratic citizenship, the new Black insiders must participate in a structural amnesia that implicates their own negation.” (192)

I can’t help feeling I am missing out on something important, and that the editors could have perhaps pushed Nsele (incidentally, a co-editor) to be more precise in her argument.^{[22]There are signs that Nsele’s final draft may have needed revision. The phrase “Fanon’s epidermal schema” appears twice in five lines (198). Shortly after, the phrase “kneeling in front of the flower and watering it” appears twice within seven lines (199). There is also a quote, presumably from Fanon, that is not adequately referenced (198). Such details are typical of drafts rather than fully resolved edits.}

James’ text, like that of Nsele, locates its discussion of art and artists within a theoretical frame and provides a stimulating example of the challenges to delinking from western epistemologies. She appropriates the idea of “outta line” from contemporary Caribbean music, adapting it to signify “a rejection of linear history and the decentering of the west as a point of departure for the narrativization of the past.” (156). One way James does this is through unlikely juxtapositions of hitherto discrete terms that are normally associated with specific historical moments. For instance, she coins “decolonial enlightenment”, a phrase which features in her sub-title and surfaces fleetingly, seemingly not requiring elaboration. She also invents, as mentioned earlier, “abstract realism”, where she fuses two contradictory aesthetic approaches; and “postmodern baroque” (176-177). Postmodern baroque, which she presents in quotation marks and lower case, is a workable construct for her discussion of Duval-Carrié’s complex, eclectic and dense aesthetic, enabling her to introduce a contemporary critical lens that links the opulence of the French Baroque style with its financing through colonization and slavery.

James’ coupling technique is provocative in unsettling orthodoxies, forcing one to rethink the ways terms have been used in the past.

However, in disrupting hegemonic terms, is there not an overdependence on a grammar that not only derives from but also ultimately reinforces Western constructs? Consider this passage by James:

“… in true Baroque fashion [Duval-Carrié] heightens the surreal and distorted nature of Haitian history through formal referencing. The faces of the figures appear grotesque and fantastic in ways that recall the vegetable portraits by the Italian Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, often cited as an inspiration for Surrealism, a movement in intimate partnership with the Haitian artistic Renaissance of the 1940s.” (my emphases, 180)

Other than my uncertainty regarding what James means by “formal referencing”,^{[23] Does “formal referencing” mean allusion to, or deployment of different styles, as in the postmodern technique of fractured and juxtaposed quotations?} how is “true Baroque” surreal, as exemplified by an atypical painter from the Italian Renaissance? And why hitch the “artistic Renaissance” of Haiti (note capital R) to that of Italy?  Of course, my confusion may, again, be refuted by James’ central proposition to get “outta line”, to disrupt linear narratives in order to fully experience the present, as implied in her concluding sentence: “Rejecting the implied order and veracity of linear histories, pasts and futures fold into our present … denying us all the false comfort of the post as past.” (181)^{[24]Her use of the term post refers to a period in Caribbean history synonymous with resistance.}

If the introduction and deployment of terms such as “decolonial enlightenment” (James) and “restorative nostalgia” (Boym, filtered by Nsele) demonstrates a welcome hunger to enable new critical frames, there is one conception unifying the Imagined New project that arguably could do with the same degree of iconoclasm. I refer specifically to the conflation of Blackness with African identity.

While the quote from Farber’s introduction that opens this review refers to “African and African Diasporic art practices, as they relate to … the radical Black Tradition” (12), mostly the terms Black and African are used interchangeably. The title of the workshop, which serves as the subtitle for the book, refers to Africa and the African Diaspora. There is no reference to Blackness. However, we are told by Farber that “the project as a whole focuses on Global South Black perspectives.” (12). A little later, Farber describes the project as “a space where an interdisciplinary group … could come together to work towards forwarding conversations around critical work on African and African Diasporic art and aesthetic practices.” (13-14). In contrast to the title of the book, the title of Bogues’ opening address references Blackness and omits Africa. Moiloa retains the emphasis on Blackness, setting out to imagine a “Black space.” (133). Dennis equates “Africanness” (which he places in inverted commas), and Blackness. (45) Similarly, James, in her discussion of Brunias’ Free Women of Color links Blackness to African slaves. (58, 73) These examples highlight a seamless overlapping of colour/race and place, which may be a historical fact in specific contexts, as in James’ commentary on Brunias’ painting, but as that same example shows, both Black and African identities become increasingly complicated with time.

The project initiators, according to Farber, were “careful to consider … differences in global considerations of Blacknesses, with recognition that these are not homogenous. Indeed, these differences formed a critical part of the conversations, with strong contributions from South African participants as to the specifics of Black experience in South Africa, in relation to those from the United States of America and countries from the Global South such as the Caribbean (sic), Brazil and Ethiopia.” (12)

Readers will have to accept Farber’s assurances that these conversations took place, since there is nothing in this book to unsettle the construction of Blackness as a synonym for African identity.

It is only Nsele who makes some differentiation about African identity and she does it by resurrecting the sub-Saharan construct (193)^{[25]See Olu Oguibe’s deconstruction of the notion of Sub-Saharan Africa, where he, piece by piece, reduces it to parts of Central and West Africa. O. Oguibe, “In the Heart of Darkness”, Third Text} which she names as “Black Africa, to be exact.” This “Black Africa”, Nsele argues, is the antithesis of “South Africa’s collective unconscious [that] yearns for a South Africa that is geographically severed from Africa…”. (194) Notwithstanding the serious levels of Afrophobia within the country, which Nsele is endeavoring to explain in relation to Machona’s work, it strikes me as problematic to not acknowledge various pan-Africanist impulses within the country, even if they currently constitute minority discourses.^{[26]M. Mamdani, “Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities: Overcoming the Political Legacy of Colonialism”. In O. Enwezor (ed.) The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994. Munich: Prestel, 2001, 27.} Further, I have difficulty accepting the idea of a “collective unconscious’ within such an unequal and divided ‘nation’, and even harder to accept that this shared South African psyche manifests as “rainbow nationalism.”

With these misgivings about Nsele’s generalisations about a South African collective unconscious, and her emphasis on rainbow nationalism, I am intrigued by her use of Fanon’s quote from his essay on National Consciousness:

“When dealing with young and independent nations, the nation is passed over for the race, and the tribe is preferred to the state. These are the cracks in the edifice which show the process of retrogression that is so harmful and prejudicial to national effort and national unity.” (193)

Nsele goes on to cite Mamdani in attributing tribalism as a colonial strategy of divide and rule (193-194), but is she considering the resonance of this quote from Fanon for South Africa today?

I will argue that contrary to Nsele’s argument that “rainbow nationalism” is a hegemonic discourse and force, an equally if not stronger argument can be made that precisely the kind of ethnic fracturing and tribalism highlighted by Fanon is manifesting in the growth of ethnic and racial nationalisms. This is most apparent in Kwa-Zulu Natal, but not confined to the province. Non-racialism is perceived by many to be under threat — constitutionally enshrined but not embodied in daily life.

The rainbow moment is largely discredited, associated with the promise and failure of the ‘new’ South Africa, trodden on by the realities of deepening inequalities.

It is only in superficial nation building moments like the successes of South Africa’s rugby team that a facile non-racial unity takes centre stage, with recalcitrant whites, ‘let bygones be bygones’ others and an opportunistic government desperate for popularity raising its shredded flag. And with the likes of the Democratic Alliance – founded in the unity of white capital and Afrikaner nationalism – taking up non-racialism as a veiled call for minority rights, it is no wonder that Nsele and so many others have no time for Rainbow nationalism.

Faced with the ashes of Rainbowism, what is the remedy? Surely the imperatives of confronting racism and inequality require a unifying discourse. Surely a shared project should transcend the nation-state, since to remain psychologically and emotionally bound to nation-state nationalism is to capitulate to the legacies of colonialism. Such a project requires us, as Mamdani so presciently argued decades ago, to “reconsider the colonial legacy that each of us is a native or a settler…”^{[27]M. Mamdani, “Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities: Overcoming the Political Legacy of Colonialism”. In O. Enwezor (ed.) The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994. Munich: Prestel, 2001, 27.} 

Consider the anomaly that South Africa is the only country on the African continent that officially designates “African’ as a population group.^{[28]This is consistent with the origins of the South African nation-state as a settler construct, where most indigenous groups were claimed to have migrated south, a falsehood perpetuated in order to legitimize white rule. Despite being a hangover from Colonialism/Apartheid, this conception of African as a racial group has been retained in the post-apartheid dispensation despite the official rescinding of the Population Registration Act and despite growing internal contestation about African identity, particularly (but not exclusively) from persons and communities categorized as ‘coloured’.} Consider that there is increasing dissatisfaction at not being recognized as Africans amongst many so-called coloureds who claim indigeneity. Consider that the descendants of indentured workers, slaves and settlers view (South) Africa as home. Consider that the alternative to not reimagining ‘Africa’ as inclusive is to retain the unstable fault-lines between those with rights to belong and those not. Then ask yourself, are you ready for a postcolonial, non-racial pan-Africanism?

I wonder about the prospects of the initiators and participants in the Imagined New project conceiving of Africa — in its current phase of struggle for overcoming colonialism and slavery and attaining global equality — as less of an essentially racial or cultural identity and more of a historically constructed geo-political identity? Adopting such an understanding should not necessitate an erasure or negation of past injustices and contemporary inequalities, as Nsele claims in her critique of “rainbow nationalism”. Neither should it necessitate an erasure or diminishing of Blackness which surely remains a valid point of discourse and mobilization globally as long as whiteness is perceived as hegemonic. Instead, thinking of Africa as a geo-political identity would pry open a space in which an inclusive African identity can be imagined, where questions of African history, culture and languages remain central, along with a commitment to eradicate discrimination in all its forms.

It is clear that ‘African’ is a work in progress, as are equivalent continental identifiers such as ‘American’, ‘European’ and ‘Asian’. Is it not time to encourage an inclusive vision of African identity that may or may not overlap with conceptions of Blackness (and conversely, to foster conceptions of Blackness that may or may not be tied to being African)? Retaining Black and African as synonyms may appear natural or necessary for many, but for a significant ‘some’ this conflation of identities fails to address contemporary realities and challenges.

the Imagined New (or, what happens when History is a Catastrophe?). Volume 1 Working through Alternative Archives: Art, history, Africa and the African Diaspora. Edited by Anthony Bogues, Leora Farber, Zamansele Nsele & Surafel Wondimu Abebe. Published by iwalewabooks (Johannesburg, Lagos & Bayreuth), 2023.