BOOKS ‘Vistas of Modernity’ with Sekai Makoni

Dates:

Reading Group 1: 25 June, 6 - 8 pm
Reading Group 2: 30 July, 6 – 8 pm
Reading Group 3: 27 August, 6 – 8 pm
Book Launch: 11 September, 3 – 5 pm

Location: MELLY/online
Language: English

In collaboration with the Mondriaan Fund, Kunstinstituut Melly is proud to host the publication launch of Rolando Vázquez’s Vistas of Modernity: decolonial aesthesis and the end of the contemporary on September 11, 3-5pm. The launch program will explore the historical context and present vocabularies of urgent debates regarding the inclusiveness of art institutions such as museums and contemporary art spaces. Invited guests will respond to the essay, featuring a keynote lecture by Professor Gloria Wekker and moderation by Nancy Jouwe. Further contributors will be announced closer to the date along with an audience registration link.

Leading up to the launch Kunstinstituut Melly will host a reading group series. The text will be read, discussed and digested in three parts with paired invited guests Sasha Huber, Sekai Makoni and Wendelien van Oldenborgh. The reading groups will be hosted online in zoom sessions with an open number of attendees. Participation is welcome from dedicated readers and from those who are interested only to listen. You can join all three sessions, or only one. In order to be part of a reading group, be sure to register to receive the link as well as the relevant text portion supplied by PDF one week prior. Rolando Vázquez will join the final half hour of each session, offering responses and reflections on the interpretations of the reading group. Please register online here.

Launch and Reading Groups Series

Friday 25 June, 6 – 8 pm
‘Decoloniality’ & ‘Modernity’ with Sasha Huber

Friday 30 July, 6 – 8 pm
‘Coloniality’ with Sekai Makoni

Friday 27 August, 6 – 8 pm
‘The Colonial Difference’ with Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Saturday 11 September, 3 – 5 pm
Publication Launch: Vistas of Modernity with Prof Gloria Wekker, Nancy Jouwe, Rolando Vázquez a.o.

Vistas of Modernity delves into the historical contexts and the aesthetic conditioning that shape current efforts to address the inclusiveness of art institutions and educational spaces in the Netherlands and beyond. Through a series of postcards or ‘vistas’, Vázquez traces the sensorial contours of ‘colonial difference’, and proposes an understanding of ‘positionality’ as essential to decolonial work. This, he explains, is the basis to grasping and performing ‘decolonial aesthesis’.

The essay is commissioned by the Mondriaan Fund as part of its essay series on current topics within visual arts and cultural heritage. Kunstinstituut Melly hosts the event in dialogue with the ongoing efforts of its name change initiative and continuing process of institutional transformation through collective learning.