Hosts of the Dead. Black Thought as Necromancy
February 24, 7–8:30 PM
In 1814, in the newly sovereign kingdom of Haiti, Baron de Vastey published The Colonial System Unveiled, the first systemic critique of colonialism written from the perspective of the colonized. Calling out the former French colonists, he describes his intellectual endeavor as follows: “I shall awaken the remains of the numerous victims you thrust into the grave and borrow their voices so that I might unveil your foul deeds. I shall exhume those poor wretches you buried alive.” If necromancy is defined as the ritual or magic practice of communicating with the deceased, endangering the frontier between life and death, then historically, modern Black critical thought could be defined as a singular form of necromancy.
Ajari discusses the constancy of invocations of the dead throughout the history of Black thought, from the period of chattel slavery through the 21st century, and explore their liveliness and functions. Because of the ever-present proximity of execution, the difficulties to mourn the dead, and distinctive religious and artistic imaginaries of the hereafter, which all defined their existence, people of African descent have often re-imagined necromancy as first philosophy. In the process, the haunting proximity of death is turned into an opportunity for humanization and empowerment.
Pedro Neves Marques’s multidimensional practice includes cinema, poetry, critical writings, and art. Storytelling, a devotion to science fiction and speculation, and the confessional space of intimacy and emotions are defining elements throughout their work, gateways to imagine other possible futures and clashes between competing views of nature, technology, and gender.
Pedro Neves Marques (she/they) is a film director, visual artist, writer, and editor born in Lisbon, Portugal. They were the Official Portuguese Representation – Portugal Pavilion at the 59th La Biennale di Venezia and have been awarded a Pinchuk Future Generation Special Prize and the Present Future Art Prize. They have also received numerous awards for their films, including the Ammodo Tiger Short Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Their films have been included at the Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and their work at large has been exhibited at High Line (New York), e-flux (New York), Pérez Art Museum of Miami (Miami), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Gasworks (London), CA2M (Madrid, with Zahy Guajajara), Tate Modern Film (London), as well as the Liverpool Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, Guangzhou Image Triennial, and the New Museum Triennial, among many others.
They are co-founders of the film production company Foi Bonita a Festa and of the poetry press Pântano Books, through which they published their first poetry collection, Sex as Care and Other Viral Poems (2020), as well as publishing the work of other authors and translating the work of CAConrad into Portuguese. They write between art, cinema, and theory regularly for e-flux journal and various publications, and edited several projects, most recently YWY, Searching for a Character Between Future Worlds: Gender, Ecology, Science Fiction (Sternberg Press, 2022).
Hosts of the Dead. Black Thought as Necromancy
February 24, 7–8:30 PM
In 1814, in the newly sovereign kingdom of Haiti, Baron de Vastey published The Colonial System Unveiled, the first systemic critique of colonialism written from the perspective of the colonized. Calling out the former French colonists, he describes his intellectual endeavor as follows: “I shall awaken the remains of the numerous victims you thrust into the grave and borrow their voices so that I might unveil your foul deeds. I shall exhume those poor wretches you buried alive.” If necromancy is defined as the ritual or magic practice of communicating with the deceased, endangering the frontier between life and death, then historically, modern Black critical thought could be defined as a singular form of necromancy.
Ajari discusses the constancy of invocations of the dead throughout the history of Black thought, from the period of chattel slavery through the 21st century, and explore their liveliness and functions. Because of the ever-present proximity of execution, the difficulties to mourn the dead, and distinctive religious and artistic imaginaries of the hereafter, which all defined their existence, people of African descent have often re-imagined necromancy as first philosophy. In the process, the haunting proximity of death is turned into an opportunity for humanization and empowerment.
Pedro Neves Marques’s multidimensional practice includes cinema, poetry, critical writings, and art. Storytelling, a devotion to science fiction and speculation, and the confessional space of intimacy and emotions are defining elements throughout their work, gateways to imagine other possible futures and clashes between competing views of nature, technology, and gender.
Pedro Neves Marques (she/they) is a film director, visual artist, writer, and editor born in Lisbon, Portugal. They were the Official Portuguese Representation – Portugal Pavilion at the 59th La Biennale di Venezia and have been awarded a Pinchuk Future Generation Special Prize and the Present Future Art Prize. They have also received numerous awards for their films, including the Ammodo Tiger Short Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Their films have been included at the Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and their work at large has been exhibited at High Line (New York), e-flux (New York), Pérez Art Museum of Miami (Miami), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Gasworks (London), CA2M (Madrid, with Zahy Guajajara), Tate Modern Film (London), as well as the Liverpool Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, Guangzhou Image Triennial, and the New Museum Triennial, among many others.
They are co-founders of the film production company Foi Bonita a Festa and of the poetry press Pântano Books, through which they published their first poetry collection, Sex as Care and Other Viral Poems (2020), as well as publishing the work of other authors and translating the work of CAConrad into Portuguese. They write between art, cinema, and theory regularly for e-flux journal and various publications, and edited several projects, most recently YWY, Searching for a Character Between Future Worlds: Gender, Ecology, Science Fiction (Sternberg Press, 2022).