Event
A Beauty Class: Society, Politics and Transcendence
Thursday 1 April 2021
The Ignorant Art School, Sit-in Curriculum #1
An event with author and social critic Minna Salami on how beauty could shape the sociopolitical, cultural and economic relationships that we have with each other and with the nonhuman natural world. The session will explore beauty as a necessary feminist tool for regenerating society and politics. It will cover topics such as knowledge, activism, decolonisation, and leadership. The question, “what would change if we seriously thought about how to beautify the crises of society?” will be at centre of the event.
Facilitator biography
Minna Salami is a Nigerian, Finnish and Swedish writer, feminist theorist and the author of the internationally-acclaimed book Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone, published in March 2020. Translated into five languages, Sensuous Knowledge has been called “intellectual soul food” (Bernardine Evaristo), “vital” (Chris Abani) and “metaphysical journey into the genius the West hasn’t given language to” (Johny Pitts). Minna has written for the Guardian, Al Jazeera,
World Literature Today and is a columnist for Esperanto Magazine. She has presented talks at some of the world’s most prominent institutions such as the UN, EU, The Oxford Union, The Cambridge Union, Yale University and The Singularity University at NASA. She is co-director of the feminist movement, Activate, and a Senior Research Associate at Perspectiva. She sits on the advisory board of the African Feminist Initiative at Pennsylvania State University and the editorial board of the Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Sahel. She lives in London.
Funding support
The Ignorant Art School at Cooper Gallery, DJCAD is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and the Henry Moore Foundation.
