Image: Isaac Nana Opoku, Dreamer 0013, 2023

CONTESTED DESIRES: Let's talk about Decolonisation

The Word, South Tyneside, National Centre for the Written Word Market Place, South Shields, NE33 1JF
Thursday 17 July, 9.30am-5.30pm | BOOK YOUR PLACE (free but limited spaces)
Find us in the Round, on the top floor 

As part of the CONTESTED DESIRES exhibition and wider conversation addressing decolonisation, we invite you to a day of thought-provoking discussions and connections around contemporary art, heritage and community.

This is an inclusive event that will appeal to anyone seeking, enacting and advocating decolonial actions and ways of being across their day-to-day creative and professional lives.

Guest speakers, including Padma Rao, Director Sangini; Malavika Anderson, Museum Manager, Great North Museum: Hancock, and Leona Vaughn, Contested Desires External Evaluation Expert and academic working across the fields of equality and human rights, will join the exhibiting artists Rafael Guendelman Hales (Chile), Elisabeth Efua Sutherland (Ghana), Isaac Nana Opoku (Ghana), Andreas Mallouris (Cyprus), Maria Luigia Gioffre (Italy), Patrick Ziza (UK) and Paul Nataraj (UK).

Together we will unpack and question what we mean by decolonisation. Our aim is to build a shared understanding of it in the contexts of contemporary art, heritage and community, and the actions we can take to change the lens and narratives to foster the contested and untold truths.

Find the agenda and programme here.

Speakers

​​Padma Rao

​​Padma is the director of Sangini - a Black and minorities women led community arts project that is committed to ending gender based violence. Based in the North East of England, Padma is a visual artist, a visiting lecturer, arts facilitator and a published poet.
 
Padma has over 20 years’ experience in the arts, heritage, community development, equalities and women’s issues. She has an art studio, Makaan, in South Shields where she has shown art by artists based locally, nationally and internationally. A published poet, Padma has a background of working in the radio both at the BBC Radio Newcastle, as well as at All India Radio, India.  Padma is co-chair of HERE North East, a heritage and archives organisation by and for the people of Global Majority communities in the North East.
 
At Sangini, Padma leads on strategic development, partnerships and creative projects that ensure representation of Global Majority women and their voices at local, regional and national networks.  
 
Padma is passionate about the role and status of marginalised women in our current society and by exploring these issues through her work, both as an artist as well as at Sangini, she aims to create a platform for the wider discussions around creativity, equality, feminism, identity and displacement of Global Majority women.

Malavika anderson

Malavika leads the Great North Museum: Hancock on behalf of North East Museums, where she has responsibility over a nationally significant collection of archaeology, natural history and ethnography alongside a programme of cultural and scientific engagement.

Previously she was Head of Live Programme at the Wellcome Collection, London. She has led the Wellcome Collection’s work on inclusive practice, working to embed decolonial practice and enquiry-led programming.

In 2017, Malavika was selected by Arts Council England as one of four Change Makers in the museum sector in a national programme for BAME and disabled leaders, working with the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM). 

​Malavika is an Executive Member of the University Museums Group committee which advocates on behalf of university museums nationally. She is also a member of the Collections Advisory Group for UK Parliament and a Board Member of Kettle’s Yard - a house, museum and gallery of modern and contemporary art.

Leona vaughn

​Kath Boodhai
​Leona, PhD, is a Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer in anticolonial approaches to studies of slavery and unfree labour at University of Liverpool. She holds a PhD in Sociology and Master in Social Research. 

She has led a number of global interdisciplinary research projects with academic, civil society, and community-based partners, including the international consultation and development of safeguarding principles for UK Collaborative for Development Research.

Leona is a skilled programme evaluator and policy writer, most recently leading global research on vulnerability to modern slavery at the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (New York). She has designed, delivered and evaluated various projects related to equality and human rights in multiple settings, including as co-evaluator with Innervision Consultancy of National Museums Liverpool’s Sankofa Connections and Collections initiative which sought to explore and represent Black community experience and social history. 

In Contested Desires she is the External Evaluation Expert. 
Kath is a Postgraduate Researcher at the School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries, Northumbria University. She is exploring Indo-Trinidadian heritage in diaspora using critical heritage discourse, postcolonial/decolonial frameworks, and performance studies. Her research examines socio-religious heritage-making practices and festivalisation.  Her work also addresses the socio-cultural legacy of British Indentureship through the artistic paradigm of Coolitude in the Caribbean and the glocal contexts of heritage in postcolonial, plural, multicultural societies.

She was a Senior Research Assistant on the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project, HERE North East: A History of Cultural Activism, a digital archive of Black and Global Majority communities in North East England. A former Vice Chair of Sangini, a Black-led cultural charity, she is passionate about Black women’s leadership and the development of Black and Global Majority-led community/cultural organisations as spaces of cultural safety and care. She is a member of international heritage and diasporic networks, including UK and Canadian chapters of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, the Indian Diaspora Research Network, and the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre, Caribbean.

CLYMENE CHRISTOFOROU
Clymene has a long history of international cultural development, working with artists, cultural organisations, communities and policy makers. She has led on a number of international cultural programmes, most recently including Contested Desires, a Creative Europe programme that explores perspectives on European colonisation, ACT (Artists Connecting in Transition), supporting artists in exile in Cyprus, Turkey, Jordan and the UK, and (Re)Grounding, working with artists from Ukraine to explore environmental and cultural contexts shaped by mining histories in Ukraine, Cyprus and the UK.
​
Clymene is a Board Member of On the Move, which supports artists and professionals to operate internationally, and an active member (former presidium member) of Culture Action Europe. She advocates putting art and culture at the heart of public debate and decision-making; and has put this into practice through her work as trainer for the British Council to develop cultural partnerships between the UK and Ukraine, and as Lead Expert for UCLG’s Pilot Cities and Eleusis 2023, a project that helps cities to develop their cultural policies to support sustainable development. She is an inaugural member of Disorderly Women – the Alliance of Women Leaders in Culture.

Artists

Rafael Guendelman Hales (Chile)

Rafael spent time at the archives and collections of the Museo della Civiltà in Rome, where he was struck by the maps and diaries of colonial explorers, including Padre Coppi’s explorations in Amazonia and the former Italian colonies in East Africa. During his research, Rafael addressed the relationship that exists between the idea of civilisation and the representations of it present in the museum. He plans to build on the idea of the explorer’s notebook, drawing on the collection at the Great North Museum: Hancock and hosting workshops.

Rafael is a visual artist and documentary filmmaker, exploring the dynamic relationship between human beings and their environment.

Elisabeth Efua Sutherland (Ghana)

Elisabeth is concerned with layered colonial histories, following bodies through different geographies and spaces by diving into images, texts, maps, landscapes, and traces of feet and where they once trod. Her research is driven by a desire to map stories, bodies and mythologies, and to examine the visibility (or lack of) and curation of black and African histories. She immersed herself in Newcastle’s history during her D6 residency - mapping stories of black and African people who visited the city or made it their home. She will present new installation and performance based works in relation to the possibilities of creating an embodied map of black experiences located in the city.

Elisabeth comes from a background in theatre and dance. She is the founder of Terra Alta, an artist-led performing arts space in Accra.

isaac nana opoku (GHana)

Influenced by weaving and indigenously produced fabrics, Nana is exploring the impact of colonial heritage on contemporary artisanal culture and textile production. During their residency in Rome, they researched the colonial collections at the Museo della Civiltà. In response to this experience, they will present a large-scale textile containing handwritten reflections and sketches that capture moments of insight, discomfort and revelation. The interconnected squares act as encrypted vessels of meaning: mirroring how traditional African textiles encoded messages, histories and cultural knowledge within their designs. 

​Nana’s practice aims to ‘decolonise imagination’ by investigating alternative ways of being and challenging established paradigms. They represented Ghana for the Venice Biennale in 2022.

Andreas mallouris (CYprus)

Andreas explores ideas of vulnerability and care centring on queer lived experiences. He lives in Cyprus where the legacy of British rule remained beyond Independence in 1960, with homosexuality illegal until 1998. Andreas was keen to explore the UK context today and the dissonance between the more progressive LGBTQI+ laws and attitudes and the traumatising institutional practices that demand ‘proof’ for queer people seeking sanctuary in the UK.

In Newcastle Andreas spent time with queer gardening club TopSoil, leading him on his return to Cyprus to establish a new gardening initiative for people seeking sanctuary as part of Koraï, an artist-run space he co-founded in Nicosia. Andreas’ work encompasses sculpture, drawings, videos and performance. These experiences informed new work across film, sculpture and photography, which he will share at the Great North Museum: Hancock.  

Maria Luigia Gioffre (Italy)

Maria’s live art, performance and text works draw on anthropologies, mythologies and uncertain futures to expand and erode historical references. Her residency in the Netherlands took her to Fort bij Vijfhuizen - a Unesco World Heritage Site that was originally designed to defend Amsterdam from a potential enemy who never came. In response, and in the context of a significant rise of military spending in Europe, she created the first chapter of Waiting Wars, looking at the fort’s history in the critical framework of reflections on the colonial past of the European Union and using chants and dance movements as tools of resistance. In a live performance, she will present the second chapter of Waiting Wars.
Maria’s practice encompasses visual art, theatre, performance, writing and curatorship. She is undertaking a PhD in performing arts and new media at The National Academy of Dramatic Arts, Rome.

Paul nataraj (UK)

Paul’s artistic practice explores the intersections of sound, materiality, memory, diaspora and identity. His work is grounded in ethnographic research and biographical storytelling. During his residency in Budapest, Paul conducted fieldwork in the city, collecting personal narratives to inform his sound-based artwork. His methodology emphasises collaborative storytelling and immersive listening experiences. Paul presents a multi-channel sound installation drawing on his research.

Working with sound, text and recorded archive materials, Paul’s performances and installations examine the deep entanglements of a postcolonial mixed-race experience, drawing on his own lived experience.

patrick ziza (UK)

Tracepace is a living, evolving artwork conceived by Ziza during their residency at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile. The work began as a performative installation inviting the public into a collective act of remembrance. Now coming to Newcastle in its second life, the canvas carries not only the physical traces of those who walked, but also the emotional and political weight of collective memory. Accompanying the canvas are the names of the participants - contributors to a living archive that honours those who have fought and continue to fight for human rights, including the victims of Chile’s dictatorship. Ziza will reimagine this work for the exhibition at the Great North Museum: Hancock. Footage of the performance in Chile will be screened during the conference. 

Ziza is a multidisciplinary artist, engaging with mediums of performance and installation to challenge preconceived ideologies about masculinity, identity and blackness, among others.

facilitators

ANDREA CARTER

​Andrea is an experienced lead producer of visual arts programmes, engaging artists and civil society actors in programmes which address and support cultural rights. With a particular focus on artistic research as practice, artist professional development and equitable engagement of participants, she currently leads the Ethics group across the Contested Desires programme.

Andrea has studied and lived in the North East since 1998 and worked extensively in the fields of visual arts and heritage, with a long-standing focus on socially engaged practice and a greater representation of marginalised communities and networks. Most recently, she has produced and coordinated activity for Pixel Palace, a Digital Arts programme at Tyneside Cinema; CORNERS of Europe for D6; and People & Play, a pilot community engagement programme and audience development strategy for Museums Northumberland. 

Andrea has also worked independently as a Heritage Consultant supporting the development of the inaugural heritage programme at Riverside Studios, London in 2017.

DAWN FELICIA KNOX

Dawn is a multimedia artist working to create interventions, dialogues and multi-layered installations that explore toxicity, remediation and transformation.  She is taking part in a Collaborative Doctoral Award with D6 and Northumbria University, supported by the Northern Bridge Consortium. Her research focuses on colonialism, climate crisis and mass human migration through decolonial processes of curation.

Dawn often works in collaboration with scientists, community members and fellow artists to collectively learn from the dynamic ecosystems we all inhabit.  In 2022, she was commissioned by Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art to create an installation for the Hinterlands exhibition. Her work The Felling explored deep time, pollution and the way self-seeding plants remediate the post industrial landscape. In 2024, Dawn was invited to create three interlinking installations along with a series of conversations and workshops at Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival, drawn from her work at the Felling site and researched at ASCUS Laboratory.  

​As a curator she has worked with internationally renowned organisations, including the Amber Collective in dialogue with artists and community activists to facilitate wider conversations about ethics, collectivism and social justice.  She was a D6 Associate Artist from 2022-2025.

useful information

Travel: bus services from Sunderland, Cleadon, Whitburn, Jarrow, Gateshead and Newcastle all terminate at South Shields Transport Interchange. The Word is approximately 5 minutes walk away. The closest Metro Station is South Shields. From South Shields Ferry Landing head towards South Shields Town Centre.
Access: entrance to The Word is at street level via Market Place. From here, there is lift and stair access to all levels.
More information here: https://theworduk.org/visit-us/accessibility/
Travel costs: If you need support covering travel costs, we have a small number of travel bursaries. Please contact [email protected].

more about contested desires

We warmly thank the speakers and artists taking part in the conference.

CONTESTED DESIRES is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. In the UK we are grateful for support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Newcastle Cultural Investment Fund.

​Special thanks to the Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle University, Sangini, South Tyneside Cultural Partnership, Tyne Coast College and North East of England African and Caribbean Community Association for supporting the exhibition and programme in the UK. And for in-kind support from the Tyne Theatre and Opera House.

Find out more about CONTESTED DESIRES here.