LIAS Kolloquium: Reconfiguration, Recalibration And Redress Of WHAG's Collection: Africa In Conversation With Europe
Chepape Makgato, LIAS Artist Fellow
21. Oct
In the winter semester 2026/27, the LIAS Colloquium will open its doors to the university community for the first time. The Fellows will present their current research projects, offering insights into the questions, methods and perspectives that shape their work. The weekly colloquium provides a space for focused exchange on the diverse research projects pursued at LIAS. All members of the university community are warmly invited to discover the programme and engage with the Fellows’ research.
Date: Wednesday, 21 Oct 2026, 12:15-1:45 p.m.
Location: Campus | Central Building C40.704
The exhibition of the same name emerges from a critical re-engagement with the historical foundations of the William Humphreys Art Gallery collection. Originally conceived as Reconfiguration of WHAG’s Founding Collection, the exhibition has evolved into a more expansive and reflexive curatorial proposition that not only rehangs the collection but interrogates its epistemological and ideological underpinnings. By bringing works out of storage into renewed visibility, the exhibition performs both an institutional and symbolic act of awakening.
At its core, the exhibition is structured around contrast, juxtaposition, and dialogic encounter. It stages conversations across temporalities, geographies, and aesthetic traditions, positioning European canonical works alongside African artistic practices to reveal both tension and resonance. These curated vicinities invite viewers to reconsider how meaning is constructed, contested, and re-authored within the museum space.