Institute for
Postnatural Studies

Water grounds our lives, from our beginnings in liquid, to our bodies as its containers. Hydro Futures / Memory Ecologies holds a space for research and investigation into our relationships with water through the frameworks of Afrofuturism and Black Geographies. The fields of Afrofuturism and Black Geographic study offer modes of thought and imagination that centre Black spatial thinking and agency. They critique both the erasure of Blackness within the whiteness and coloniality of geographical thought and analyse how the entanglements of race, class, gender, and sexuality determine patterns of habitation, denial, and resistance. (Re)thinking with water requires a fluid reimagining of time, as it serves as an archive of memory and of history - water is its own storyteller. In using Afrofuturism as a lens to creatively and critically view water with, its ecological position is expanded upon to consider its role in the past, present, and possible future(s). Hydro Futures / Memory Ecologies is an offering that prompts a close listening to water’s retellings. The invited speakers bring together conversations about the mythical, political and personal value of water, as we ourselves connect across time and (non)place throughout the seminar series. The speakers in this seminar series consider the influence of Afrofuturism and Black Geographies on their work in the fields of visual art, poetry, literature, queer and gender studies, and psychotherapy. We invite you to participate in these encounters where we hope to engage in important conversations to create more desirable futures.

Need-based scholarships are available, apply here.

The Institute for Postnatural Studies and Rhubaba Gallery & Studios are pleased to offer up to 10 scholarships for BPOC* attendees to join the online seminar, free of charge. The aim of this scholarship offer is to address the specific systemic barriers that attendees may face directly or indirectly based on their ethnic or national identities, race or perceived racial identities, or the colour of their skin.

*BPOC stands for ‘Black people, People of Colour’ and is a self-identifying term. While we use the term BPOC, we acknowledge the limitations of this terminology. This includes people who identify as Black, brown, people of colour, Global Majority, mixed-race, multiple heritage and/or are from the Global South, and/or are East and South-East Asian, West Asian, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, African-Caribbean, Caribbean, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Indigenous, or First Nations, and diasporas.

6 / 12 / 2022 - Deborah Jack Deborah Jack (1970, Netherlands/ St. Martin) is an artist whose work is based in video/sound installation, photography, painting, and text. Her current work deals with trans-cultural existence, memory, the effects of colonialism and mythology through re-memory. As a multi-media artist, she engages a variety of strategies for mining sites of cultural memory and negotiating a global present. The resonance of traumatic historical events in her personal and cultural memory is at the core of her work. Deborah has published two poetry collections, The Rainy Season (1997) and skin (2006). Her poetry has appeared in The Caribbean Writer and Calabash and has recited her work in the Caribbean, United States, South Africa, Indonesia and the Netherlands. Deborah Jack is an Associate Professor of Art at New Jersey City University. 13 / 12 / 2022 - Clementine E. Burnley Clementine E. Burnley is a feminist migrant mother, writer, and trainee psychotherapist. She lives between Edinburgh and the Hebrides. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Magma, the Poetry Review, and Writer's Mosaic. She’s a 2021 Royal Society of Literature Sky Arts Award Winner, an alumnus of Obsidian Foundation, and a 2021 Edwin Morgan Second Life Grantee. Social media: twitter @decolonialheart, or IG @Ewokila 20 / 12 / 2022 - Rinaldo Walcott Rinaldo Walcott is a writer, cultural critic and Full Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute; and a member of the Graduate Program at the Institute of Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto. From 2002-2007 Rinaldo held the Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at OISE. Rinaldo is the author of Black Like Who: Writing Black Canada (Insomniac Press, 1997 with a second revised edition in 2003); he is also the editor of Rude: Contemporary Black Canadian Cultural Criticism(Insomniac, 2000); Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora and Black Studies (Insomniac, 2016). With Idil Abdillahi, he co-authored BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom (ARP Books, 2019). As well Rinaldo is the Co-editor with Roy Moodley of Counselling Across and Beyond Cultures: Exploring the Work of Clemment Vontress in Clinical Practice (University of Toronto Press, 2010). Rinaldo’s teaching and research is in the area of Black diaspora cultural studies and postcolonial studies with an emphasis on questions of sexuality, gender, nation, citizenship and multiculturalism. As an interdisciplinary Black Studies scholar Rinaldo has published in a wide range of venues. His articles have appeared in journals and books, as well as popular venues like newspapers, magazines and online venues, as well as other forms of media. His most recent books the Long Emancipation: Moving Toward Black Freedom from Duke University Press, 2021; and On Property (Biblioasis, 2021 which was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award and nominated for the Heritage Toronto Book Award). He was born in Barbados.

24 / 1 / 2023 - Natasha Thembiso Ruwona Natasha Thembiso Ruwona is a Scottish-Zimbabwean artist, researcher, and creative programmer. They are interested in how Afrofuturism and ecology can meet through storytelling and by listening to the landscape. Using water as a method for thinking, Natasha investigates entwinements of Scottish history and Black Geographies via their transatlantic connections. Through their investigations, they are also seeking to understand how healing and improved well-being are impacted when we explore our relationships with our environment. In 2021, Natasha was one of the shortlisted artists for the Margaret Tait Award and arebyte’s hotel generation artist development programme. Recent commissions and presentations of their work include: Raumdeuter Radio Glasgow, Mis(sing) Information at Perth Museum & Art Gallery and Cinenova with Spike Island.

31 / 1 / 2023 - Chan Fagan - Clarke Chan Fagan - Clarke is a Jamaican - English Artist, Facilitator, and Arts Programmer based in the East Midlands, England. Chan works within the intersection of digital art, sound, text, and people. Their interests span world-building, fantasy gaming and storytelling, biological forms, and hybrid identities. They are presently working across multiple disciplines of practice and programming, using alternative map-making as a world building tool to collectively create worlds and to locate and chart internal worlds. They currently curate the Youth programme at Nottingham Contemporary and DJ as ‘chimaera’.