South-to-South
A Meeting on African and Afro-Diasporic Technologies
The South-to-South project is an initiative that seeks to reframe and (re)connect the technological, artistic, and cosmological knowledge of the Global South. During two gatherings, one in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, and another in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, in collaboration with Pivô Art and Research, Brazil, and Centre d’art Waza, DRC, this project has brought together a diverse group of artists, thinkers, and community organizers. Through a blend of talks, workshops, experimental lectures, and immersive activities like walks and cooking sessions, South-to-South fosters a rich exchange of ideas and practices that challenge conventional Western paradigms of technology and progress.
The first meeting, that took place in Salvador de Bahia, focused on the critical role of African cosmologies and the revival of ancient land-based practices. This gathering emphasized the need for alternative definitions of technology, grounded in the lived experiences and ancestral knowledge of African and Afro-diasporic communities. Inspired by Martinican artist René Louise’s Manifiesto del Cimarronismo Moderno, and Brazilian philosopher and quilombola leader Antônio Bispo dos Santos‘s A terra dá, a terra quer, the participants explored how maroonism and quilombismo—a practice of anti-colonial defiance and resilience—can inform modern technological practices, from robotics to biotechnology. This reimagining of technology as a tool for resistance, but also for global coexistence, set the stage for the ongoing dialogue and collaboration.
The second gathering, which took place in Lubumbashi, delved deeper into the interplay between traditional land-based knowledge and cosmological understandings of technology. Here, participants explored how local technological systems can be reoriented towards the materialization of the Pluriverse—a world of many worlds where diverse futures and multispecies realities can flourish. This meeting underscored the importance of epistemological solidarity in addressing our planetary condition, proposing alternative pedagogical forms and methodologies that resonate with Achille Mbembe’s call for a Pluriversity. This concept advocates for a space where knowledge exchange and dissemination are rooted in the pluralities and diversities of the Global South.
Participants
Oulimata Gueye, Russel Hlongwane, Lo-Def Film Factory, Gabriela de Matos, Walla Capelobo, Vanessa Orewá Pereira, Elsa M’Bala, Biarritzzz, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Sarah Ndele, Sara Garzón, Jorge Washington, Acervo da Laje, Casa do Benin, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Bahia, Anne Rodrigues, Patrick Mudekereza, Christian Nyampeta, Michael Dieminger, Bodil Furu, Ba Taonga Julia Kaunda-Kaseka, Desiré Lumuna, Diane Cescutti, Joseph Kasau, Rita Mukebo, Mr. Makonga
Sara Garzón, Michael Dieminger, Mônica Hoff and Ana Roman (Pivô), Christian Nyampeta and Patrick Mudekereza (Waza)
Sara Garzón is a Colombian curator and writer based in New York City. She specializes in contemporary Latin American art focusing specifically on issues relating to Decoloniality, Indigenous technologies, Ecocriticism, and Global South solidarity politics. Sara earned her M.A. in Art History and Archaeology from The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU (2015), and her Ph.D in the History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University (2022). Sara has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including the Andrew Harris Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Vermont (2021-2022), the Jane and Morgan Whitney Curatorial Fellowship (2020-2021), and the Lifchez-Stronach Curatorial Internship (2014-2015) both at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sara has curated exhibitions in the US, Europe, and Latin America, and is currently the curator of the interdisciplinary project South-to-South: A Meeting on African and Afro-Diasporic Technologies (2023-2024), which is organized in collaboration with Pivô in São Paulo, Centre d’art Waza in Congo, and the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. Prior to that, Sara served as guest curator of The Rise of the Coyote (2022), a practice and research-based program that looked at Indigenous technologies, futurity, and plant intelligence. Sara has contributed to peer-reviewed journals, art magazines, and exhibition catalogs. Her article Manuel Amaru Cholango: Decolonizing Technology and the Construction of Indigenous Futures was awarded best essay in Visual Culture Studies 2020 by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).
Centre d’art Waza is an art center founded in 2010 by a group of artists and cultural operators from Lubumbashi, R.D. Congo. Waza develops exhibitions, publications, and other cultural productions that promote experimentation in local artistic practices, alternative modes of knowledge sharing, and social emancipation. Waza’s projects deal with a broad range subjects, including the restitution of African cultural assets (such as Disolo, convers(at)ions with museum collections in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand), commons (Power to the commons in collaboration with Ker Thiossane, Platohedro, and SALTS), artistic education (Another Roadmap School, Africa Cluster), emancipation from paternalism in salaried work (Revolution Room), cyberspace, and the circulation of thoughts and works of art in the Global South (AfricaTube in collaboration with the AfricaMuseum, Tervuren, Boda Boda Lounge video art festival).
Pivô is a non-profit cultural association founded in 2012 that acts as a platform for exchange and artistic experimentation. The main objective of the institution is to promote and disseminate local artistic production and create a free and open space for dialogue between different agents in the field of contemporary culture, both nationally and internationally. The Pivô Salvador Residency Program is based on Pivô Research’s conception of an artistic residency: it proposes to generate a platform for exchange and experimention between artists. The Residency is a research space, in which Pivô takes the role of an intermediary agent of possible interlocutions.