Asante, Barby. 2023. Residency, Library of Africa and the African Diaspora. [Professional Activity]

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Abstract or Description

In this month long residency at the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora, Barby extended on the work of her PhD, by doing a "Sankofa" (go back and get it), return to Ghana, the birthplace of her mother. Ghana, it's philosophical cosmologies, it's history and the writings of African feminist Ama Ata Aidoo have been significant in the development of her research.

In this residency Barby returns to Ghana, listen to Sankofa, and explore what Ebony Coletu describes as a descendant epistemology. A way of being in a place, asking questions and waiting for answers to listen for the moments of re-memory of her mother, and grandmothers to begin writing a collection of poetry for a new project. "They Pour it on Us: Grief, Anger, Silence, Death, builds on the words spoken by Barby's mother in the documentary "Just Another Day - Waterloo Station," (1983) describing an everyday act of aggression that she would experience where drunk visitors to the bar she worked in would take their anger out on staff by pouring drinks on them. These words are explored through the memories of place, the legacies of colonisation, migration and the intimacies and distances of mother and daughter born in two different places. Central to this is the exploration and study of the work of the poet and scholar Ama Ata Aidoo, in the library collection. Ama Ata Aidoo was born around the same time and in the same area as Barby's mother in Saltpond in the Western Region of Ghana.

Item Type:	Professional Activity
Additional Information:	This residency was supported by an Research Support Allowance from the Art Department.
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Art
Date:	July 2023
Event Location:	LOATAD - Library of Africa and the African Diaspora, Ghana
Date range:	4 - 31 July 2023
Item ID:	35501
Date Deposited:	14 Mar 2024 11:22
Last Modified:	14 Mar 2024 11:22
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/35501

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