Borrowing a line from Lucille Clifton’s poem “I am not done yet” for its name, the I continue to continue collective (Letaru Dralega, Precious Mhone and Rosie Olang’ Odhiambo)[1] initiated their research project at the 2022 Asiko Art School programme, to explore the possibilities of listening closely as a way of world-making. Through primary and secondary research, and in conversation with colleagues, contemporaries, friends, family and mentees of the curator, Bisi Silva, the collective began to build an oral biography around the legacy of Bisi Silva.

How does one honour the voice of a visionary curator in the same spirit of generosity and expansiveness that she occupied in her living? What new voices emerge in chorus to her as the great conductor? How do we acknowledge, commemorate and archive the influence, excellence and care exemplified by the late Bisi Silva, and continue in her vision to see a thousand flowers bloom in the contemporary African art space?

What began as a research and legacy project has morphed into a thematic repository of knowledge addressing themes pertinent to the African and global art scene such as curation and care, the thin separation between the personal and professional in the artworld, the sensibilities behind women-led art spaces on the continent, mentorship and continuity, pan-Africanism, continental travel, and liminal identities.

Under the mentorship and direction of Cesar Schofield Cardoso and Emeka Ogboh, this initiation to thinking through and with sound led to Letaru presenting Bisi’s refrain (2022), a piece of music, built with the layered sounds and voices captured around Praia to reflect on the poetics of place as it related to ‘grounding’ and places or practices that one returns to, again and again. Whilst Rosie created 7 letters of longing (2022) which took the form of a radio program and unfolded as a reading of merged excerpts from fictional letters from the artist’s personal archive. 7 letters of longing (2022) considers feelings of desire brought about by distance while in transit under different skies and formed part of the installation, the blue of distance / the blue of longing (2022), a reference from Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to getting Lost (2005).

Precious created In anticipation of imminence (2022) a sound piece created using abstracted sound from the daily interactions of participants and facilitators during the three-week residency. Inspired by protostars - the birth of stars - to propose the notion of placemaking as being a collection of elements that come together. Using the waveform as a departure point, to think with both the sonic and physical (land and sea scapes); Conflux radio was created as a place to host the sound work created, for its meaning of flowing together, and possibilities towards tuning to a uniform frequency.

For the LAPA residency programme, the collective will explore constructions of oral biography, sound practices, with writing and print making forms to gesture to the practice of Bisi’s continued legacy. 

[1] ) The collective was born out of the 8th edition of Asiko Art School themed The Poetics of Place in Praia, Cape Verde, 2022. The first edition to take place since the passing of its founder Bisi Silva in 2019, and the last Asiko program that she initiated.
 

Rosie Olang’ Odhiambo is a curator, and bookmaker living and working in Nairobi, Kenya. She is exploring workshops, zines, and artist’s books as formats to play across various disciplines engaging with decolonial, queer, feminist, and black radical traditions. Her artistic and curatorial approach aims to cultivate generative collaborative processes, centering local context and deep research, thoughtfully deployed to develop exhibitions, publications, and programming that is accessible, sustainable, ambitious, and liberatory.

© Henry Robinson

 Letaru Dralega is a Ugandan Jamaican British artist and researcher based in Kampala, Uganda. Her research interests include the material/immaterial dichotomy in African(a) philosophy and spirituality in the Black Atlantic whilst her process-centered practice experiments across collage, painting, installation, and sound to contemplate rupture/ repair, memory, and belonging in this “post-colonial” moment. A social scientist by training she holds a Masters of International Development with African studies (2019) from Sciences Po Paris, France. She received a Prince Claus seed award supported by the British Council (2022), UNDP Uganda’s creative innovation grant (2022) and is an alumna of 32 Degrees East Ugandan Arts Trust Kampala (2017), Asiko Art School Praia (2022), Hyde Park Art Centre, and a fellow of the Black Arts and Decolonial Sciences Lab, Chicago (2024). She has contributed research to projects such as Pillars of Rectitude: East African Women Artists of the 1960’s - where she focused on Theresa Musoke’s Aesthetic philosophy and Conflux Radio: Bisi Silva Legacy research with CCA Lagos. She currently co-directs Afropocene StudioLab an interdisciplinary research space in Kampala and The Capsule, an Independent public platform established to promote experimental, immersive, and alternative exhibition formats in Kampala.