Bridget Thompson: Ernest Mancoba’s African rooted, universal vision of humanity

Ataya: HUMA Interdisciplinary Seminar Series

Speaker: Bridget Thomson, The Art & Ubuntu Trust

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Bio: Bridget Thompson is an independent filmmaker whose documentary films on South African and African social history and culture have been shown locally and internationally on television, as part of educational programmes, country tours, in museums and galleries, as part of special events and been translated in a few different languages. She has served on international film festival juries and taught cinema at film schools and universities, locally and internationally. She writes about cinema and art, curates exhibitions and since the 1980s has devised and managed 4 national alternative education programmes. She brings an interdisciplinary blend of artists, scholars, musicians, writers, filmmakers and activists to her work. She is developing feature film scripts under the theme, Going Beyond Guns, Gangs and Action. She served on the UNESCO Slave Route Scientific Committee from 2011 to 2016 and founded and has been exec trustee of the Art Ubuntu trust since 2005

Topic: There are many vexed questions concerning African art on the continent and in South Africa which find expression in problematic definitions and terms which obscure rather than illuminate. These paradigmatic difficulties create awkward processes in art history, curricula, critical understanding, museum collections and understandings of art and artistry . Ernest Mancoba’s intellect and aesthetic cuts through this quagmire. His vision, sourced in pluri-versal epistemologies, most significantly those sourced in indigenous visual heritage, integrates multiple influences in brilliant economical expressions of a possible future for humanity. Amongst South African artists he is not alone, for the rich sources of indigenous visual heritage derived from within the system of African art have not (yet) been extinguished and are a major, if critically hardly acknowledged, factor in the work of many South African contemporary artists.

How Ataya works: One presenter and their work – in exchange with the audience. Each Ataya session engages with selected work by the presenter (a text, artwork, performance, even food). The presenter introduces their work and grounds the subsequent discussion with the participants. For best engagement, we recommend participants to view the work (made available in advance on our website) before the session.