New Wave Global Blackness: Black Contemporary Art Without Borders

Underpinning the new wave of Global Blackness is a consciousness of the transnational, unconfined operations of antiblackness and systemic racism. This renewed consciousness of the reproduction of racial capitalism at a global scale was rekindled and elaborated by the 2020 movements for Black lives.

Wishing to address the myriad of ways this global awareness is shaping and imbuing contemporary Black art, architecture and performance, this proposal seeks papers that unflinchingly critique and explore the capacious symbolic relations and signifiers of global blackness and anti-blackness. This panel anticipates contributions connected but not limited to: dis/figuration, dis/possession, non/belonging, non/being, un/worlding, presence and absence as they link to the larger framework of global blackness. Global South and North framings of anti-colonialist, pan-africanist and afropessimist perspectives are welcome as this panel seeks to elaborate on contemporary art, architecture and performance that evokes visual solidarities and their limits. While the aim is not to undermine localized geographic specificities and the historical hierarchies that determine geopolitical centers and margins; rather the motive is to deepen an understanding of the nuances, and tensions— by tracking where they converge and diverge. The aim is to illuminate and engage the new wave of global black aesthetic solidarities, imaginaries and their affective consciousness.