Conference Theme

The idiomatic phrase, “to go sideways” suggests that something is going wrong – it fails, veers out of control, deviates from the original plan, takes a turn for the worst, or ends up a disaster. Similarly, if a situation “goes south” it is said to be declining, decreasing in value, weakening or decaying. Such idioms are predicated on Western ideas of linearity, hierarchy, privilege and value that favour the global north. But what if we consciously reach sideways? What if we actively embrace a sideways slip and, with lateral thinking, we contest value-driven assumptions about up/down or success/failure?

A collaborative, multivocal dialogue, “Reaching Sideways, Writing Our Ways: The Orientation of the Arts of Africa Discourse” (Simbao et al 2017) was published in African Arts in 2017. Fifteen co-authors explored what it means to reach sideways and, in doing so, to write art histories in our own ways. While the “our” in this dialogue was not homogenous, it situated authors based predominantly on the African continent as a group of thinkers and creators who reach sideways across the continent and within the global south without gazing uncritically “upwards” or “northwards” for theories, ideas, methodologies and trends (Ngũgĩ 1986). 

Challenging the competitive individualism of many academic and visual art spaces, reaching sideways emphasizes collaboration – a bringing together of hearts and minds in an “encounter [where] there are neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only people who are attempting, together, to learn more than they now know” (Freire in Simbao et al 2017:10). It is about collaboratively engaging with communities in respectful, non-extractive ways as we strive to “know with” (de Sousa Santos in Baasch et al 2020) rather than “know about”. 

Reaching sideways is about lateral vision that situates the visual and sonic cultures all around us within the social, political, economic and spiritual realities we live by, and grapples with them in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways. It is about a community of practice that “fuses artistic processes with social activism to respond to the conditions that plague our everyday modern existence” (Nalubowa in Simbao et al 2017: 18). Such approaches challenge hierarchies of knowledge and open creative practices and scholarship to forms of co-creation that are embodied, spiritual, creative and intuitive.

In contexts of education, reaching sideways is also about horizontal and reciprocal ways of teaching and learning that are transgressive and pedagogically engaged (hooks 1994). How do we, as scholars and practitioners in the visual, performing and sonic arts challenge Western legacies of dichotomising scholarship and practice? How do scholars in other Humanities disciplines engage with the arts to generate more creative, communal and holistic research? 

We invite scholars and practitioners form the arts and other Humanities disciplines to grapple with broadly defined ideas of reaching sideways in relation to the ways that we create. We strongly encourage lateral thinking/creating that expands this concept through personal interpretation, and that crosses the boundaries of disciplines and modes of practice. 

Positioning this event as a conference and festival, we support presentations that creatively engage with and expand upon academic presentation styles, including collaborative presentations and performance lectures.

We welcome student participation, student and staff collaboration, as well as cross-institutional partnership.
Proposals for short forms of live art, sound art and video screening will also be considered.