This webinar will explore the intersection between colonialism and art from various perspectives. Janine Francois, a Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, will explore the interconnections between colonialism, art museums and decolonisation based on their doctoral research at Tate. Dr Hiroki Yamamoto, a Lecturer at Kanazawa College of Art, will address the topic of transnational legacies of colonialism in East Asia, including socially-engaged art in postcolonial Japan. Finally, Dr Khairani Barokka, an Indonesian writer, researcher, and interdisciplinary artist will discuss how art practice in and about Southeast Asia has been shaped by colonialism.

About the Speakers:

Janine Francois (they/them) is a Black British Feminist, critic, writer and lecturer. They are a doctoral student exploring, ‘if Tate can be a safer space to discuss issues of race and cultural differences’ at Tate and the University of Bedfordshire. Janine has been published widely across both academic journals and mainstream outlets including the Journal for Visual Culture, The Architecture Review, VICE and The Independent. Janine is currently the Course Leader for the BA course in Culture, Criticism and Curation at Central Saint Martins. They have established the University of the Arts London’s first-ever Hip-Hop Cultures module as well as co-creating the Royal College of Art’s first-ever Hip-Hop Studies reading group as a Visiting Lecturer.

Hiroki Yamamoto is Lecturer at Kanazawa College of Art in Japan. Hiroki graduated in Social Science at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo in 2010 and completed his MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts (UAL), London in 2013. In 2018, he received a PhD from the University of the Arts London. From 2013 until 2018, he worked at Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) as a postgraduate research fellow. After working at Asia Culture Center (ACC) in Gwangju, South Korea as a research fellow and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the School of Design as a postdoctoral fellow, he was Assistant Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts until 2020. His publications include The History of Contemporary Art: Euro-America, Japan, and Transnational (Chuo Koron Sha, 2019), Media and Culture in Transnational Asia: Convergences and Divergences (Rutgers University Press, 2020), and Thinking about Racism (Kyowakoku, 2021).

Khairani Barokka is a Minang-Javanese writer and artist from Jakarta, whose work has been presented widely internationally. She is currently Research Fellow at UAL’s Decolonising Arts Institute, UK Associate Artist at Delfina Foundation, and Associate Artist at the National Centre for Writing (UK). Among her honours, she has been Modern Poetry in Translation’s Inaugural Poet-in-Residence, a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change, an Artforum Must-See, and an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow. Her books are Rope (Nine Arches) and Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis), and she is co-editor of Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches). She has just published a poetry collection, Ultimatum Orangutan (Nine Arches).