A Transatlantic Periodic Table

Ayesha Hameed

In this presentation I will discuss and play an excerpt from A Transatlantic Periodic Table a 17 minute audio essay that was included in the 2019 Gothenburg Biennale. It is part of Black Atlantis, a multi-chapter project that has taken the form of videos, performances, lecture performances and audio works that looks at possible afterlives of the Black Atlantic: in contemporary illegalized migration at sea, in oceanic environments, through Afrofuturistic dancefloors and soundsystems, and in outer space.  A Transatlantic Periodic table visits key moments in this project. 

Black Atlantis combines two conversations - afrofuturism and the anthropocene. It takes as point of departure Drexciya, the late 20th century electronic music duo from Detroit, and their creation of a sonic, fictional world. Through liner notes and track titles, Drexciya take the Black Atlantic below the water with their imaginary of an Atlantis comprised of former slaves who have adapted to living underwater. This wetness brings to the table a sense of the haptic, the sensory, the bodily, and the epidermal. What below-the-water, and Atlantis brings back is the bottom of the sea, the volume of the water, the materiality of the space of the ocean, and other protagonists that inhabit the sea. 

Ayesha Hameed’s work explores contemporary borders and migration, critical race theory, Walter Benjamin, and visual cultures of the Black Atlantic. Her work has been performed or exhibited at ICA London (2015), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2014), at The Chimurenga Library at the Showroom, London (2015), Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities, Oxford (2015), Edinburgh College of Art (2015), Kunstraum Niederoesterreich Vienna (2015), Pavillion, Leeds in 2015, Homeworks Space Program, Beirut (2016), the Bartlett School of Architecture (2016), Mosaic Rooms (2017) and RAW Material Company (2017). Her publications include Futures and Fictions (co-edited with Simon O’Sullivan and Henriette Gunkel Repeater 2017), Visual Cultures as Time Travel (with Henriette Gunkel Sternberg, forthcoming 2018); and contributions to Forensis: The Architecture of Public Truth (Sternberg Press 2014), We Travelled The Spaceways (Duke University Press forthcoming 2018), Unsound/Undead (Forthcoming 2018).

Lively Archives: In the Wake of Energy Developments

Rachel yacaaʔał George

Jen Bagelman &

Sarah Marie Wiebe

What does it mean to think of oceans as an ‘archive’? In Greek archive referred to the home or dwelling of the Archon – a rule or chief magistrate where official documents were carefully stored and interpreted. For many coastal Indigenous nations, oceans are spaces of intimate relationships and embodied governance. What would it look like to (re)center oceans as home, holding vital life and forms of knowledge? What if we were to think with oceanic sources to guide governance, rather than view oceans as geographies to be governed? Our paper takes seriously these questions through a reflection on our 5-year collaborative project ‘Seascape: Indigenous Storytelling Studio’ which has explored how diverse Indigenous communities are envisioning sustainable futures with an emphasis on seascape governance in the wake of energy development projects. This paper offers various oceanic archives that have emerged across the Pacific, including stories around Tribal Journeys and revitalization projects at xwaaqw’um’.

Rachel yacaaʔał George is nuučaańuł of Ahousaht and Ehattesaht First Nations. As a coastal Indigenous woman, an intimate relationship with the ocean has remained a vital part of her life. She has worked as a collaborator and Research Assistant on the SSHRC-funded Seascapes: Indigenous Storytelling Studio since 2017. In this role she worked closely with Kw’umut Lelum youth during the 2017 and 2018 Tribal Journeys canoe paddles. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta specializing in Indigenous Politics. Her research has focused on reconciliation, justice, and pathways of decolonization through storied practice.

Sarah Marie Wiebe is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Hawai'i, Mānoa with a focus on community development and environmental sustainability. She is a Co-Founder of the FERN (Feminist Environmental Research Network) Collaborative and has published in journals including New Political Science, Citizenship Studies and Studies in Social Justice. Her book Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada's Chemical Valley (2016) with UBC Press won the Charles Taylor Book Award (2017). Alongside Dr. Jennifer Lawrence (Virginia Tech), she is the Co-Editor of Biopolitical Disaster and along with Dr. Leah Levac (Guelph), the Co-Editor of Creating Spaces of Engagement: Policy Justice and the Practical Craft of Deliberative Democracy. She worked with Indigenous communities on sustainability-themed films including To Fish as Formerly. She is currently collaborating with artists from Attawapiskat on a project entitled Reimagining Attawapiskat funded through a SSHRC Insight Development Grant. Sarah is also a Co-Director for the Seascape Indigenous Storytelling Studio, funded through a SSHRC Insight Grant with research partners from the University of Victoria, University of British Columbia and coastal Indigenous communities.

Jen Bagelman grew up on Coast Salish territories (Vancouver Island, Canada) where she completed my BA and MA at the University of Victoria. After finishing her PhD at the Open University, she taught at both Durham University and Exeter University. She is now a lecturer in human geography at Newcastle. Bagelman's research explores the impacts of colonial displacement on Indigenous peoples, particularly in the Pacific Northwest of Canada. Currently she is examining the impacts of proposed energy development projects on Indigenous coastal communities through a five-year SSHRC grant called ‘SEASCAPE: Indigenous Storytelling Studio.’