When: Friday, December 8, 2023 - Saturday, December 9, 2023, 6:30 PM - 1:00 AMWhere: Peckham Levels, 95a Rye Lane, London, SE15 4ST
A reading of Red Earth by Michael Salu and a performance of Diamond Power by the Planetary Portals Collective with film by Michael Salu
Planetary Portals examines these colonial afterlives of extractive industries in southern Africa, drawing attention to their social and environmental costs across the continent. We investigate how colonial dreams of Empire have been and still are sustained through 'changes of states' exemplified in today’s mining of rare earth elements (REEs) and their transformation into the digital data infrastructures of techno-utopian futures. Colonialism is an ongoing material present that requires counterpoetics, which challenge its planetary passage and modes of affective and material reproduction.
Planetary Portals is an interdisciplinary research collective of Michael Salu, Dr Kerry Holden (QMUL), Casper Laing Ebbensgaard and Professor Kathryn Yusoff (QMUL), which examines the colonial afterlives of extractive industries in southern Africa, drawing attention to their social and environmental costs across the continent.
Michael Salu is a British-born Nigerian writer, artist, filmmaker, editor and creative strategist with an interdisciplinary practice. He runs House of Thought, an artistic research practice and is part of the Planetary Portals Collective.
All are welcome. For more details and to sign up, visit Eventbrite. The event is co-funded via IHSS Large Grant Seed Corn funding scheme and supported by the IHSS Research Programme Re-thinking Work.