4. Imagining futures for institutions in the era of social distancing

This week, we present a conversation between Marie Hélène Pereira and Elvira Dyangani Ose: Imagining futures for institutions in the era of social distancing.

Elvira Dyangani Ose’s practice has been very much centered on the idea of coming together, the study of everyday life as a way of understanding herself and the meaning of her practice. In directing The Showroom, a space for knowledge sharing, for care, for intervention and contestation of traditional knowledge, her principal self-assigned mission has been to keep an attentive ear to the community that she describes as ‘intangible heritage’.

Knowing then the importance of interacting and listening to our communities in our institutional missions we are tempted to ask what it means to abruptly stop? Thinking further, what would it mean to resume?

In the case of RAW it has been very hard to imagine a continuation without the possibility of having our rituals of hospitality, of greeting our public and hearing about their week before diving into the collective thinking and exchange that can very much be understood as a pretext for keeping our community together.

This interview builds on previous conversations manifested in different ways between RAW and Elvira throughout the past decade.