Graduate Summer Programme

The 2024 Programme, “Are We Postcolonial?” took place between 15–26 July over two weeks in the UK and South Africa. In the first week, participants were based in London with trips to other places in the United Kingdom. In the second week, participants travelled to Cape Town and Johannesburg. The programme was fully funded, and all travel and accommodation costs were covered.

“Are We Postcolonial?” introduced a range of approaches to that question through the lens of history, theory and practice. The programme involved close engagement with objects and histories; opportunities to meet and work with contemporary artists and makers; and forums to think through theoretical and methodological questions of colonialism, decolonisation, neo-colonialism and nationalism in so-called postcolonial societies. We used ceramics; textiles; graphic design; and a range of historical and contemporary art and design practices to ground our investigations. Questions of material, environment, systems of labour and extraction, memory, the ritual lives of objects and how their meanings have changed across time and space will be central to our approach. In following material, environmental and cultural histories, we asked where the markers of postcolonialism and its heterogenous meanings might lie.

The prefix “post” in “postcolonialism” was understood not as a temporal marker for a clear-cut transition after independence from a colonial power, but as a marker of the relationship that registers the ongoing effect of colonialism on a former colony (see Shohat 1992). Colonialism had lasting effects on both the metropole and its diasporic communities. Through an embodied approach to understanding the continuing legacies of colonialism, “Are We Postcolonial?” allowed us to understand how our contemporary lives are continuously constituted and affected by structures, institutions, habits and objects with roots in the colonial world.

It offered the opportunity for art historians and art students to learn from each other, and for UK-based students, Yale-based students and South Africa-based students to connect with their peers and with other members of the UK and South Africa’s arts communities. The 2024 Graduate Summer Programme was led by Sria Chatterjee and Sarah Turner from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Nontsikelelo Mutiti from the Yale School of Art and Edward Cooke from the Yale History of Art Department.

Structure

The programme was structured around:

• hands-on making workshops with contemporary makers and artists; talks by, and discussions with, scholars, curators and artists
• visits to historical sites, archives and arts organisations
• opportunities for collective reflection and the development of ideas